Ivy Wong
KUCHING: The reopening of schools here tomorrow (Monday) despite Kuching remaining a Covid-19 red zone has many parents worried.
However, they have accepted the State Disaster Management Committee’s (SDMC) decision on Friday to allow 1,045 schools, including the 814 schools that have been open since March 1, to open for physical classes.
The decision was made after a risk assessment was done in line with the School Management and Operation Guidelines in the New Norm 2.0 by the Education Ministry.
Nurse Jennie Lin, 51, will let her daughters return to classes because of the importance of schooling.
“I fully agree if the school will be operating as usual, of course with full SOPs (standard operating procedures) to be carried out, it should be all right. By now most parents and students are very alert on how dangerous the Covid-19 infection is.
“We know what to do after over a year on MCO (Movement Control Order) and CMCO (Conditional Movement Control Order). And now, as we are getting closer to (attaining) the herd immunity, so for a better learning process, I fully agree for schools to reopen,” she said.
She pointed out students would be able to communicate more effectively with teachers and classmates, develop better interactions in social relationships, and the learning environment at school is also more conducive.
For Ivy Wong, 45, a unit trust consultant, students should be fine to return to school as it has been over a year living with new norms.
She stressed the importance of adhering to SOPs when her children aged 12 and 14 return to school.
“Online learning with no physical interaction might cause a sense of isolation for the students. Long hours focusing on computer screens would also cause health hazards — lack of discipline, lack of accreditation. So I think it’s best that the students return to school.”
Gilbert Tan
Business development manager Gilbert Tan Wen Yang, 36, opined it is not the right time to reopen schools due to the rising number of new Covid-19 cases in Kuching.
He is worried about how his three school-going children aged 13, 12, and five, would fare as data has shown the state is not ready to handle the situation.
“Children are always playful and it is totally impossible to practise social distancing and contactless communication within the school compound.
“So when we cannot control this situation, we should adapt to new norms which can let us fit in the system for now and even continuously in future, so the root cause of the problem is solved,” he said.
He suggested schools should consider different study time groups, reducing student numbers in a classroom, identifying their talents at a younger age, and grooming them on specialised subjects.
Tan said if this could be put into practise at schools, then the chances of students getting infected could be minimised.