China’s Ministry of Education (MOE) said yesterday that K-12 schools will be the first to reopen once COVID-19 is sufficiently contained, with universities to follow sometime after, Beijing News reports.
According to Wang Dengfeng, the director of MOE’s COVID-19 task force, the top priority will be getting all primary and secondary schools settled, and only then will they consider reopening universities.
Wang also said it is possible that schools could add weekend classes to their schedule to make up lost time, China Daily reported.
Of the more than 40 million college students across China, more than 10 million attend school outside their home province. With so many students traveling back to campus, most of whom would have to rely on trains and planes to get across the country, the migration could upend months of painstaking work to control the spread of the virus, the ministry said.
By the time all grade levels have resumed onsite learning, over 300 million students will be moving around their cities, potentially swapping both germs and quarantine stories.
Given that very few provinces have settled on opening dates for K-12 schools, it could be a while yet for the nation’s universities.
Though some provinces have begun slowly ushering students back onto campus, there’s still no date announced for Beijing. Follow our blog here for the latest updates.
Photos: quickenloans.com
