Forcing an early summer school break on our children is ruthless and reckless

After repeated school closures, the latest audacity to move a season without consultation or consideration feels like war has been declared not so much on Covid-19 as on our children and their future

Alice Wu

Published: 12:30pm, 27 Feb 2022

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Let’s be clear. Schoolchildren around the world have had more than 100 weeks of education disruption. They have lost an estimated over 2 trillion hours of in-person instruction.

School closures have a devastating impact on learning, on social and emotional development and health – and we don’t get to make up for them later, not like how some of our hardest-hit local businesses can now defer their rents. We are talking about lifelong deficits in social and interpersonal skills.

An often-cited report from the World Bank, Unesco and Unicef estimates that this generation of children could lose US$17 trillion in lifetime earnings in present value – a staggering price we are making our younger generation pay.

So when the convenor of the Executive Council devoted an entire opinion piece to the detrimental impact that repeated school closures have on children of all ages and what ignoring the pleas of educators mean for the government, one would reasonably expect that the chief executive would listen to what her top adviser had to say.

I was holding out hope that for saying what many people have been saying about the harms of extended learning disruptions, Bernard Chan would get through to Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor. Are we right to sacrifice the future of younger generations for the sake of accommodating the vaccine sceptics?

Maybe he did get through to Lam; and hence the ingenious idea to have the summer holidays before the Easter break. It’s not technically a school closure. It’s not technically a disruption. Lam just moved summer up by a few months.

Well, school’s out, but it’s definitely not summer! Easter is a moveable feast. It is not a summer break if children are expected to continue with and finish the 2021-2022 school year, which has been extended into August. It’s not a summer break if one has to go back to finish the school year.

The summer holidays are more than a ceremonial break between two academic years; it’s a clean break for students (and their parents) so they can be temporarily free of worry over any unfinished business over studying – a time of reprieve before they dive into another school year of new challenges.

Zero-Covid goal is not worth the price society will pay for school closures

So I’m sorry, these are not just dates on a calendar. As in these famous words of wisdom: “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.” We may have developed an incredible tolerance for change, for we have learned that resilience requires an acceptance of the need to adapt. But there is a time for summer breaks.

And the audacity it takes to just move a season, seemingly on a whim, without even considering or consulting those who would be affected, and without a care in the world as to how it would ruin the plans of so many – parents scrambling now to look for summer activities for their children to do at home, and the many who had made plans to see loved ones overseas.

04:15

Hong Kong announces universal Covid-19 testing, school holidays moved up, tightened restrictions

It’s as ruthless as it’s reckless. Who is to say that a leader can play with lesson plans or to tell those who have given everything to build their businesses to basically shut down for a quarter?

The chief executive had likened these times to “wartime”. But yet, it feels very much like it’s been quite a war against the children. International schools were able to band together and fight their way through not having the summer holidays in March.

But what about other schools? Why must the government make it necessary to fight against it? Why must the government take advantage of those who have yet to learn to fight for themselves? It should not be left to others to foot the bill for the government’s unpreparedness and ineptitude.

Alice Wu is a political consultant and a former associate director of the Asia Pacific Media Network at UCLA