Coronavirus: few Hong Kong schools planning to resume all classes on campus, with testing teachers for Covid-19 a stumbling block

Name: Covid-19: Hong Kong’s needy pupils sidelined by online learning one year since class suspension
Uploaded: 2021-02-19T14:38:33.000Z
Duration: 5 min 39 s
Description: Covid-19: Hong Kong’s needy pupils sidelined by online learning one year since class suspension

Roughly 200 of about 5,000 kindergartens, schools and tutorial centres intend to bring back all pupils from Monday

Education Bureau previously said agreeing to regular testing of teachers for coronavirus was prerequisite for full reopening

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Children wearing face masks return to kindergarten in Kowloon Tong. Photo: Winson Wong

Chan Ho-him

Published: 10:38pm, 19 Feb 2021Updated: 1:05am, 20 Feb 2021

Only about 200 of some 5,000 Hong Kong kindergartens, tutorial centres and schools intend to bring back all pupils for in-person classes from Monday by meeting a government condition to have staff undergo regular Covid-19 screening, according to the Education Bureau.

Latest figures provided by the bureau on Friday showed about 100 of those that applied for full resumption were private tutorial schools, while most of the rest were kindergartens, with more schools expected to apply over the coming week.

The figures, however, mean only about 4 per cent of the city’s schools were planning for a full resumption. Official data shows there were about 1,000 kindergartens, 1,100 primary and secondary schools and 2,700 private tutorial centres last year.

Earlier this month, Secretary for Education Kevin Yeung Yun-hung said that rules on in-person classes would be relaxed, allowing all schools to bring back on campus up to one-third instead of one-sixth of the total student population after the Lunar New Year holiday in mid-February.

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Covid-19: Hong Kong’s needy pupils sidelined by online learning one year since class suspension

Face-to-face classes at Hong Kong schools were suspended from early December amid the fourth wave of Covid-19 infections, after only resuming for about two months.