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Opinion
Hong Kong needs to reopen schools and save children from the ‘Covid slide’ in education
- While closing schools early on in the pandemic was the right call, evidence now shows schools rarely drive outbreaks and suggest they can be safely opened
- Children, particularly the very young and those from less well-off families, need in-person classes to learn well, and virtual learning is a poor substitute
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Emily Matchar is a writer and educator based in Hong Kong and Pittsboro, North Carolina.
My phone vibrates. A friend has texted me another petition. “Reopen Hong Kong Schools.” I sigh, and add my signature to the thousands of others. I’ve signed several of these over the past few months. Hong Kong parents are desperate. But no one seems to be listening.
Hong Kong schools have been closed on and off for a full year now. They open for a few weeks, then are shuttered almost instantly each time case numbers begin to rise. This leaves children at home with online learning programmes of varying quality, and puts working parents in a bind.
Though some students are now able to attend school in person one day or so a week, many, like my four-year-old son, receive their entire education in front of a glitchy computer screen. The government offers no plan and no information on when schools might reopen fully – after Lunar New Year? When cases drop below a certain number? When vaccines arrive?
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