Coronavirus: PolyU to be first of Hong Kong’s universities to welcome back select students for ‘essential’ on-campus classes
- HKU’s medicine faculty to follow suit a month later; both will require students to wear masks and employ ‘low-density settings’ for classes
- Face-to-face sessions crucial in certain subjects, provost says, particularly for students seeking placement in the city’s hospitals
Polytechnic University will next month become the first of Hong Kong’s higher education institutions to bring at least some students back to campus for face-to-face teaching considered essential for certain subjects.
Most of the city’s eight publicly-funded universities said they would carry out online learning for the rest of the second term or until further notice after classes were suspended in February as the coronavirus epidemic grew.
The University of Hong Kong’s medicine faculty also plans to resume some essential face-to-face small group teaching but not until May at the earliest.
Both PolyU and HKU will require students to wear surgical masks during classes to be conducted in low-density settings.
PolyU told students and staff in an email on Monday that limited on-campus face-to-face activities would be allowed from April 6, as certain types of activities including practicum, clinical skills training, hands-on laboratory and studio sessions were essential to fully achieve learning outcomes in some subjects.
Deputy president and provost Alexander Wai Ping-kong said the decision to resume limited face-to-face activities was difficult, but the number of students present in the same room would be limited to 30 at most.
“We will conduct them at venues that are bigger and have better ventilation,” he said, adding that practicums usually last six to 10 weeks.
Among the departments resuming face-to-face teaching in April is the Faculty of Health and Social Sciences. Faculty dean David Shum Ho-keung said face-to-face sessions and practicums were crucial for students’ learning progress.