Some parents not ready to send kids back to school

SIBU: While his peers have gone back to kindergarten, Ethan Wong has to remain at home.

His parents prefer not to send him to kindergarten when class reopened yesterday.

Ling Ai Ling, 30, said her son was very eager to return to class but they decided not to send him for fear of Covid-19.

“He feels sad when we told him that he is not going to kindergarten. He said he wanted to wear face mask to school as he said it was fun to do so,” said Ling.

She was worried with what happened in South Korea where the second wave of Covid19 occurred when schools reopened last month.

We will see how it goes next month before deciding whether to send him to school.

Ling Ai Ling

“Despite his kindergarten having SOP in place, we prefer not to take any chances. Pupils in some countries contracted the virus when school reopened. We will see how it goes next month before deciding whether to send him to school,” she said.

Ling was also worried that her son might not be able to endure wearing a face mask for hours.

Headmaster of Tadika Pick Hua, Andrew Ting, said only half of its 120 pupils attended class yesterday.

“Most parents are still worried. That is understandable and we are giving them two choices of either letting their children attend physical class or through online class,” he said.

These parents, he said, would only start to send their children to school next month as they were adopting a wait-and-see attitude.

“Overall, the first day of reopening is quite smooth as the children abide by the SOP like wearing face mask and observing social distancing,” he said.