HK's Secondary Schools Close From Monday
Hong Kong’s local and international secondary schools will close their campuses from Monday (January 24) until after the Chinese New Year due to a rise in cases across schools in the city. The Education Bureau has said that all schools must move to distance learning from Monday until February 7.
The decision affects all secondary classes at both local and international schools across Hong Kong; all kindergarten and primary schools have been closed since January 14. The government has also extended its Sinovac BioTech vaccination programme to children aged five to 12 years, and the BioNTech jab will be offered from February 16.
A spokesman for the EDB said:
"The epidemic situation has become more severe recently. There have been many confirmed cases of unknown origin in Hong Kong, and there has been invisible transmission in the community. There have also been confirmed or preliminary confirmed cases in schools. Teachers and students are required to undergo compulsory testing and even quarantine. The decision was made after considering a number of factors."
There have been local outbreaks of the Covid-19 Omicron and Delta variants during the past week. Cases have been reported at local and private schools including Salem-Immanuel Lutheran College, St. Francis' Canossian College, Hong Kong Tang King Po College, Kiangsu-Chekiang College, Delia Memorial School (Broadway), HKMA David Li Kwok Po College, St. Joseph's Anglo-Chinese School, and Buddhist Fat Ho Memorial College.
The EDB is encouraging all unvaccinated teachers and school staff, parents and students to get vaccinated as soon as possible.
International schools across Hong Kong are once again switching to online learning. Elementary School Principal at American International School, Linda Morrison, says the school is well-prepared for the move.
"At American International School, our key mindset is confidence. Naturally, as we prepared our community to transition to Online School, growing our students’ confidence remained at the forefront of our planning. AIS educators are highly experienced and well prepared to facilitate online learning, given our recent experience. Our talented faculty and strong academic programs help us to design interactive learning opportunities, where students can interact, collaborate, communicate, and cooperate with other students, as a way of keeping online learning engaging, inspiring, and fun.
"After Lunar New Year or whenever it is possible for students to return to campus, we have plans in place to reacquaint our students with face-to-face learning expectations and routines. Once again, our key mindset of confidence will continue to drive our academic and social-emotional learning programs as our students work towards our ESLRs and to coming to school every day. We can’t wait for that!"
