However in some ways, it is not education as normal.
As highschool seniors returned to high school Wednesday, that they had their temperatures checked, wore masks on campus, and sat at desks that have been spaced aside, according to commonplace social distancing practices.
Nonetheless, inside hours of reopening, dozens of colleges in Incheon, a metropolis close to the capital Seoul, have been compelled to close once more after two college students examined constructive for coronavirus.
South Korea — which has reported greater than 11,100 coronavirus circumstances and 264 deaths — seems to have its outbreak largely beneath management. Now, the nation is making an attempt to get again to one thing approaching regular life.
However South Korea’s expertise reveals that reopening colleges doesn’t suggest a return to regular — and carries continued dangers.
Across the area, different international locations which have managed to regulate their outbreaks are going through related questions in the case of schooling.
A brand new regular for school rooms
The expertise of scholars in Asia Pacific reveals that even when international locations reopen colleges, that does not imply a return to the outdated methods.
In South Korea, college students aren’t all heading again directly.
South Korea’s college students have not been within the classroom since earlier than the spring break in February.
Wednesday was the primary day again for senior highschool college students, however college students from different grades will likely be returning over the subsequent few weeks. By June 8, college students of all ages are anticipated to be again at college.
On Thursday, the nation’s Ministry of Training urged illness prevention inside and outdoors colleges.
The danger in going again
Getting youngsters again into college is just not with out difficulties.
On Thursday, a highschool within the South Korean metropolis of Daegu despatched college students dwelling and closed the college after a pupil examined constructive, an official on the Daegu Metropolitan Workplace of Training mentioned. Based on the official, the scholar who examined constructive was one in all 17 who moved into the dorms a number of days in the past.
Korea Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention (KCDC) deputy director Kwon Jun-wook mentioned Thursday that education is one thing that should happen alongside illness prevention. “So we at the moment decide that it should proceed in our present response regime, with the co-operation and participation of all our folks,” Kwon mentioned.
On Could 13, authorities in Jilin, a northeastern Chinese language metropolis in a province of the identical identify that borders Russia and North Korea, issued a discover that each one resumed lessons would change to on-line as the world battles with an increase in new circumstances.
The danger in reopening after a lockdown is one thing consultants and leaders across the area are nicely conscious of.
China’s high respiratory skilled, Zhong Nanshan, instructed CNN final weekend that the nation remains to be susceptible to a different wave of lethal coronavirus infections. “We face a giant problem — it is not higher than the international international locations I believe in the mean time,” he mentioned.
And when New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern introduced that the nation was easing restrictions — together with permitting youngsters to return to high school — she urged warning.
CNN’s Yoonjung Web optimization contributed to this story.