First Hong Kong primary school students return to full-day, in-person classes after nearly 3 years of Covid disruptions

A small cohort of Hong Kong primary school students enjoyed lunch breaks with their friends for the first time in nearly three years, as they inaugurated the return to in-person, whole-day classes on Thursday.

Only 67 of the city’s roughly 500 primary schools have made the switch so far, although the education sector said it expected most to resume full-day classes after the New Year or Lunar New Year holidays, as different activities had already been arranged, while some parents even said they preferred the half-day schedule.

Inside a classroom at the Tsuen Wan Trade Association School in Tsing Yi, around 20 Primary One students sat separately at their desks quietly, eating from their lunchboxes on Thursday.

Students across all grades who spoke to the Post during their break said they were excited to be back in school full time, as this meant more opportunities to interact with their classmates and learn in person.

Eleven-year-old Brighton Chan said he could barely remember the last time he had lunch in school, which was before the pandemic broke out in 2020.

“It’s been so long since I’ve seen my classmates without their masks,” the Primary Five student said.

However, some said they needed time to adapt to the new measures.

Naive Chan, 10, said she felt nervous about taking off her mask around classmates during meals. “We put on our masks after eating, but I’m still a bit scared of catching Covid,” she said. “But I think I will get used to it after a while.”

Teachers reminded students to put on their masks and clean their hands after they had finished eating. Students were then brought down to the courtyard where they were free to play together.

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The Education Bureau said on Thursday so far 259 of around 500 primary schools had applied to resume full-day classes for their whole cohort from 1 December or later. Another two had applied for a resumption of only some classes.

The government announced primary schools could resume whole-day classes in December if at least 70 per cent of students were double-vaccinated.

The announcement came as the city’s Covid daily caseloads dropped to around 5,000, although Thursday’s return to classes coincided with the figure surpassing 10,000 for the first time since September.

The school had made arrangements for resuming full-day lessons after the bureau announced the details two months ago, according to principal Chow Kim-ho. This included verifying that more than 70 per cent of students had received two vaccine doses.

Food caterers, school bus operators and vendors organising after-school activities were also contacted to adjust to the new schedule. Most parents welcomed the idea of having their children attend school full time after three years of disruptions.

Previously, the school’s 260 pupils had classes in the morning until 12.45pm, with a 90-minute break for lunch and travelling home, before taking part in extracurricular activities via Zoom in the afternoon.

From Thursday onwards, students will stay in school until 3.45pm with a one-hour lunch break between classes.

“The arrangements remain mostly the same, with formal classes in the morning and activities like sports, moral education, and arts and crafts in the afternoon, which gives us more flexibility when planning the curriculum,” the school head said.

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Full-day classes have been suspended since early 2020, when the pandemic began. The resumption and suspension of classes went back and forth when Covid-19 caseloads in Hong Kong and individual schools reached high levels during this prolonged period.

Half-day, in-person classes were later allowed for primary schools as the pandemic eased in April this year. But students are required to conduct daily rapid antigen tests before going to school.

From May this year, primary school students have been allowed to participate in another half-day of non-academic activities on campus, although lessons were not permitted.

Students attending the new whole-day sessions must consume their lunch on campus. Updated health guidelines require schools to ensure lunch venues are well-ventilated with adequate fresh air supply.

Guidelines no longer mandate schools to install partitions between students, requiring pupils only to “maintain a proper distance”.

Polly Chan Suk-yee, vice chairwoman of the Aided Primary School Heads Association, said schools could choose to resume full-day classes this month, after the Christmas break in January or following the Lunar New Year holiday in February.

“Before the announcement of allowing primary schools to resume full-day classes, our school already arranged some activities for students to join and tutors are also hired. It is difficult to change their timetable,” she said.

“Like my school, most of my students are from the middle-class and their parents would now like them to join some activities outside schools in the [afternoon],” the principal said. Her schools, she added, would resume full-day sessions after the Lunar New Year holiday.

She said some schools would resume full-day classes in December, partly because many working parents relied heavily on the institutions to look after their children.

Visiting one of the schools returning to a regular schedule on Thursday, Secretary for Education Christine Choi Yuk-lin said on her Facebook page that the bureau would keep an eye on the development of the pandemic and review protective measures in a timely manner.

“The students were very excited to have lunch together and enjoy normal campus life,” she wrote, adding that a total of 440 secondary schools out of around nearly 450 had resumed full-day classes.