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| Students arrive at an elementary school in Seoul, Monday. While schools currently offer both in-person and online classes that follow the COVID-19 pandemic social distancing guidelines, the education ministry aims to resume in-person classes fully starting from the second semester. Yonhap |
By Bahk Eun-ji
Parents and educators are showing mixed responses to the education ministry's plan to resume fully in-person classes at schools in the second semester.
Supporters of the plan say the quality of education has deteriorated and that a learning gap between children has widened due to online classes conducted over the past year, while opponents say that the full-fledged resumption of in-person classes should be decided carefully as there is still a risk of virus transmissions inside classrooms.
Under the current COVID-19 social distancing guidelines, schools have a cap on in-person attendance, from one-third to two-thirds of the total students, according to different levels of social distancing in each region. In Seoul, all students ― other than first- and second-graders of elementary schools and high school seniors ― usually have in-person classes two to three days a week, and study remotely for the rest of the days.
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| Education Minister Yoo Eun-hae speaks during a meeting with quarantine measure experts, Monday, at the Korean Teachers' Credit Union building in Yeouido, Seoul. Yonhap |
The ministry's push for a full resumption of offline classes comes amid mounting concerns that a learning gap between children has widened, while online classes have been provided for more than a year, since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020.
The education ministry has reiterated that schools are relatively safe from virus transmissions, pointing out that there were fewer numbers of confirmed cases in schools than in other public places.
According to data released by the ministry, the rate of confirmed infections among students in elementary, middle and high schools nationwide for the past three weeks stood at 18.9 per 100,000 people, lower than the national average of 25.1 per 100,000.
So far, vaccinations are continuing for school health staff and teachers at special care schools, and inoculations of homeroom teachers of first- and second-graders at elementary schools will start next month. The ministry is holding discussions with health authorities to have all teachers nationwide get vaccinated by the end of summer vacation.
Koh Sun-young, a 36-year-old elementary school teacher in Gwangjin District, Seoul, said she welcomes the ministry's plan.
"The lower grade elementary school students are not being managed well when they have their classes online. Online classes have obviously left some students behind in their learning and social development and it will get much better when in-person classes resume," Koh said.
On the other hand, a 38-year-old teacher working at an elementary school in Namyangju, Gyeonggi Province, who wished to be identified only by her surname of Yi, said that the nation needs to confirm first how effective the COVID-19 vaccine will be and then begin to discuss whether the students can all gather in one place.
"The thing is, questions about the effect of the vaccine and whether we are indeed going to be able to reach herd immunity are not fully answerable yet, so the full-scale resumption of in-person classes hardly sounds reasonable," Yi said.
Parents also showed mixed reactions to the education ministry's plan.
Hong Eun-hee, 46, whose daughter is a second-grader in Nowon District, Seoul, said she agrees with the necessity of offline classes, especially for young students like her daughter. But she is also concerned about the government's level of preparation to prevent possible mass infections among students.
"It seems irresponsible for the government to just send students to school without a proper plan, at a time when the vaccination rate is still low, and the number of daily cases has yet to fall," Hong said.
Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency Commissioner Jeong Eun-kyeong said, Monday, that in order to decide on whether to resume full-scale, in-person classes, the authorities need to comprehensively review the nationwide number of infections, vaccination rate, and how infections have taken place in schools.
