As schools all over the city are making final preparations to welcome back their students, saying “this year’s back to school is different from the previous years” is just stating the blatantly obvious. The health and safety of children are being placed at the highest level of priority and until COVID-19 becomes a thing of the past, there will continue to be new regulations on how schools need to operate under these special times.
On Monday the Beijing Municipal Education Commission (BMEC) announced that it’ll be conducting what they call grid management and tracking students’ movements from the start of the new semester. It is not clear exactly what is meant by ‘grid management’ but the Commission states that schools should be prepared to arrange grids on campus in order to avoid any unnecessary group gatherings, which suggests that they would be a system of physical or visual barriers designed to control the flow of students and maintain social distancing.
There have also been changes to how meals are served and consumed at schools. The commission has notified schools and food catering companies that in the upcoming new semester raw food products will not be allowed to be served on campus. According to the Beijing Municipal Education Commission’s Weibo account, uncooked food, pastries containing fresh cream, and kidney beans will not be allowed to be sold on campus. Currently, we have not heard any confirmation whether these new regulations pertaining to on-campus food safety will affect fresh fruits and salads. Beijingkids will continue to follow up on the issue and update you as we hear back from the schools.
School cafeterias and even supermarkets and convenient stores located close to school campuses will be undergoing month-long checks by the municipal market supervision bureau to ensure the food sold are up to safety standard.
A representative of the Beijing Education Commission emphasized that these new actions are not in response to any new outbreaks or emergency in Beijing, but should be considered as “the new normal.”
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