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Ms. Thanh Nga whose child is in third grade at a primary school in Thu Duc City said that the school was open for more than two weeks, but she had to go to school twice to take her children home for distance learning. The teaching schedule changes weekly; as a result, both the mother and the child are listless.
Similarly, daily activities in the family of Mr. Phuc Nguyen who is the father of a son studying at a school in District 3 has been thrown into complete turmoil for the past two weeks because several classmates of his child have been infected with the coronavirus. Even, he took the child to the school in the morning but in the afternoon, he was told to pick up his children back home because there is an infection case in the class, causing the family life to be turned upside down, said Mr. Nguyen.
According to Ms. Nguyen Thi My Hanh, Principal of Vo Truong Toan Secondary School in District 1, some 80 students were potentially exposed to Covid-19 and they are in quarantine at home. She revealed that the school had four online classes last week.
This week, students of three classes of them returned to face-to-face learning, but their peers in the other four classes switched to online learning. Last but not least, there has been an increase in teachers infected with the coronavirus making it difficult for the school to arrange searching staff, said Principal My Hanh.
Regarding the issue of recognizing students with Covid-19, Head of Ideological Politics Division under Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training Trinh Duy Trong said that when a student shows signs of Covid-19, parents should immediately notify the health station or local health center for further tests.
On the afternoon of March 1, Associate Professor Dr. Tang Chi Thuong, Director of the Department of Health of Ho Chi Minh City, said that many families in fact didn’t inform local administrations and healthcare centers but self-treatment. For these cases, the department had a meeting with the Department of Education and Training, asking to request schools to accept students back to school when the student tested negative for Covid-19. Mr. Thuong added that many schools have been mistaken while still requiring students to take PCR tests.
A representative of the Department of Education and Training confirmed that parents are encouraged to take their children to medical centers to be tested and have negative results recognized as per the current regulations.
However, because local medical workers have been overloaded with too much work, parents can test their children at home with the witness of a representative of schools to ensure the accuracy of the results.
Yesterday, the southern metropolis officially welcomed more children under three years old back to school.
On the morning of March 1, Mr. Cao Thanh Binh, Head of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Council’s Culture and Social Affairs Committee announced to discuss further with the education and health sectors to find flexible solutions to remove the problem for schools. According to Mr. Cao Thanh Binh, the Department of Culture - Social Affairs is also working with a bank that will sponsor test kits for educational institutions.
