Coronavirus: Hong Kong children bear the cost of missing school, as more are diagnosed with learning problems

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“She had emotional problems and she once locked herself in the washroom and her teacher had to call me for help,” recalled Tsui, who is in her 30s.

Her only child was diagnosed as having learning impairment, dyslexia, emotional problems and speech delays, and needed preschool help to catch up with the appropriate development outcomes and various types of therapy.

But help was not available immediately, as many organisations had suspended their services for children aged up to six years because of the pandemic.

“My girl eventually got the government preschool service only when she started Primary One last year,” she said.

There have been no more school closures, but starting primary school has not been easy for the girl, especially in Chinese language lessons. She struggled with writing Chinese characters in sequence, something children usually mastered in kindergarten.

“My daughter’s teacher told me my girl’s handwriting was ugly and she could not follow the stroke order,” Tsui said.

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Her daughter is among tens of thousands of Hong Kong students affected in various ways by the multiple rounds of school suspensions from 2020 to early last year.

A calculation by the SCMP found that children in K1 to K3 attended school for only 30 to 50 days in 2020, instead of around 190 days before the pandemic. Primary school pupils had only 70 to 80 school days that year, and secondary students, 80 to 90 days.

In 2021, schools generally stayed closed for the first two months before students in different grades took turns to return. Half-day classes only resumed fully in late May.

But Hong Kong’s deadly fifth wave of Covid-19 infections early last year saw in-person classes suspended in January and the summer holiday was brought forward too.

Students only returned to school in batches in April and May, and there have been no further closures since then.

With the last batch of cross-border primary and kindergarten students resuming face-to-face lessons on February 22, Hong Kong’s schools are back to normal at last, except for everyone having to wear masks and the need for primary and preschool pupils to do daily rapid antigen tests.

But the city is still coming to terms with the lingering impact of the school closures which forced children to spend months at home attending classes online, isolated from their teachers and friends.

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In Hong Kong, the youngest children who missed out on a proper kindergarten education over the past three years were among the hardest hit.

They entered primary school without adequate preparation, and some were struggling.

Clinical psychologist Vivian Siu Ho-yee said some primary pupils in the lower grades could not write their names or the numerals one to 10 in sequence.

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“Toddlers should have been taught some basic reading ability and classroom skills in kindergarten,” she said.

“There is a girl in Primary Two who found it difficult to clean herself and tidy up after using the toilet. She was in preschool when schools were suspended.”

Siu, who is with the Hong Kong Family Welfare Society and has more than 15 years’ experience, said preschool teachers could usually identify children’s speech, behavioural and autistic issues early and refer them for help as soon as possible.

The pandemic disrupted that process when the children had to stay home.

“Many toddlers with developmental barriers could not be identified and receive appropriate training,” she said.

Siu said children who did not pick up various motor skills sufficiently at preschool, including how to hold a pen, would find it hard to learn and adjust to primary school life.

According to Department of Health data, the number of children under 12 who were newly diagnosed with speech and language development disorders rose in 2020 and 2021, coinciding with the school closures.

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The number with speech problems rose from 4,300 in 2019, before the pandemic, to 4,570 in 2020.

Speech problems were the only condition among all developmental disorders which registered an increase in 2020. The number rose to 5,401 in 2021.

The number fell by nearly a quarter last year, with nearly all students returning to school from last April and no more citywide suspensions since.

Experts told the SCMP that some children had difficulty because they could not observe their teachers’ mouth movements to imitate, and could not hear them clearly either, as the teachers were masked.

With public concern over the disease receding across the world as fewer cases are recorded, experts say the time has come to focus harder on children and young people who continue to suffer the effects of the health crisis.

While Hongkongers expect the mask mandate to be lifted soon, not everyone is keen to stop covering up.

Joyce Yip Chui-yee, a manager at the Hong Kong Family Welfare Society who supervises a team of about 10 social workers sent to schools, said there were teenage students who were worrying about showing their faces to their classmates after all this time.

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“I have some students saying that they will not take off their masks. A girl said she felt prettier with a mask, which also covers pimples,” she said. “It is an issue of self-esteem.”

Asked if the pandemic hit Hong Kong’s children and young people harder than others, psychologist Siu said people of all ages were affected, perhaps in different ways.

Children who showed signs of struggling or lagging behind, she said, ought to receive help to catch up as schools returned to normality.

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“But I am sure kids are more flexible than previous generations,” Siu said. “They could adapt swiftly to changing lesson modes, in-person or online.

“Two years ago, there were lots of uncertainties and students could not plan anything. But with no more school closures, we can now reassure them that they can meet their teachers and classmates and expect something regular in school.”