A teacher is testing a small child at the school gate (Photo: SGGP)
The Ministry issued direction at this morning's online meeting on school opening in localities at the Government headquarters chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam.
At the meeting, the Ministry of Education and Training reported that all students in provinces and cities have plans for preschool children and students to return to schools directly in February 2022. From February 7 to 16, the total number of students studying directly reached 93.71 percent.
The Ministry has set up nine inspection teams in some localities after the Lunar New Year finding that the epidemic continued to develop complicatedly in many localities. Since the fourth wave of coronavirus pandemic from April 27, 2021 until now, 162,917 officials, employees, teachers, lecturers and students have been infected with Covid-19.
Especially after the Lunar New Year holiday, when direct teaching activities are organized, several localities have seen a sharp increase in the rate of teachers and students infected with Covid-19 including the Northern City of Hai Phong with 9,649 cases, the Central Province of Ha Tinh with 675 cases, and the North-Central Province of Thanh Hoa 2,359 cases.
Therefore, many educational institutions had to switch to online learning because there were cases of F0 among staff, teachers, and students. A few localities have not yet decided on a specific time for preschool children and primary school students to go to school in person.
Some educational institutions are still confused with handling students infected with Covid-19. Moreover, educational institutions bumped into difficulties with face-to-face teaching in big-size classes. Last but not least, the shortage of teachers, especially at the preschool and primary school levels, puts great pressure on educational institutions to implement direct teaching.
The Ministry of Education and Training also mentioned that some parents are still uncertain about sending their children back to schools directly, especially for preschool and primary schools because children under 12 years old have not been vaccinated whereas the epidemic is still complicated; consequently, some localities have a low rate of preschoolers. For instance, roughly 66.3 percent of small students in Ho Chi Minh City came to schools on February 14 while 11.7 percent of children in Hai Phong City went to schools on the day.
The Ministry of Education and Training proposed the Government direct localities to develop consistent plans for bringing preschool children and students to schools for their safety. Furthermore, local administrators must pay investment in grassroots health workers for schools in the area to ensure the prevention and control of epidemics when organizing direct educational activities.
Local governments should be guided on how to test small children and how to treat children infected with Covid-19 to assure parents.
The Ministry of Education and Training also requested the Ministry of Health to make statistics of the number of Covid-19 children since the Lunar New Year holiday until now, the number of cases in the community and the number of cases infected at schools, the number of severe cases and the number of deaths to relieve parent’s anxiety.
