A first grade student at Luong The Vinh Primary School in HCMC studies online at home, September 2021. Photo courtesy of the student’s parents
Under the impacts of Covid-19, only 25 cities and provinces in Vietnam have fully reopened their schools, with the rest either being half open or adopting online courses.
Data from the Ministry of Education and Training showed on Sunday that 20 of the 25 localities where schools have been reopened are in the north, the rest in the north-central region and two in the central highlands.
Hanoi and Hung Yen are the only localities in the north to have students studying entirely online with 22 other localities, most of which are in the south, including Ho Chi Minh City, the epicenter of the current wave.
Education sectors in the remaining 13 localities are organizing online and face-to-face courses depending on the pandemic situation in each region.
In the past two years, around 22 million students across the country have experienced various course interruptions and had to switch to online learning due to the impacts of the pandemic.
The 2021-2022 school year came at a time when Vietnam was hit hardest by the fourth wave of Covid, which emerged in late April and has so far been responsible for more than 682,600 infections and more. of 17,000 deaths.
The Department of Education and Training said last week that about 7.35 million students are studying online in communities with social distancing orders.
However, around 1.5 million students do not have sufficient access to online education, while courses delivered through television have also encountered equipment and signal challenges, a said Minister Nguyen Kim Son.
For now, a program to call on citizens and businesses to support students, especially those in areas affected by the coronavirus and those who cannot afford to study online, has been launched by the ministry. of Education and the Ministry of Information and Communication.
The program is expected to minimize the negative impacts of the pandemic on the field of education and alleviate the learning difficulties of students.
