HCMC – HCMC will allow students to return to in-person classes in January next year when the second semester of the 2021-2022 academic year starts.
Director of the HCMC Department of Education and Training Nguyen Van Hieu told a press briefing on October 7 that some 1,500 schools are being used for quarantining or treating Covid-19 patients, and that their original purpose will be restored by mid-November, the local media reported.
It will take the department one month to disinfect these schools before the traditional, in-person learning environment is restored there, Hieu said, adding that a full return to in-person classes would happen after the HCMC government gives approval in January 2022.
Hieu said that the online learning rate in HCMC was very high. Over 225,850 high-school students, some 400,000 secondary-school students, and more than 679,400 primary ones, reaching 99.8%, 97.9% and 97.7%, respectively, are attending online classes for their first semester.
As scheduled, primary schools will finish the first semester on January 22, 2022, while the secondary- and high-school sections will end the first semester on January 15 next year.
In mid-September, the HCMC Department of Education and Training submitted its plan to reopen schools in districts safe from Covid to the city government. Under the plan, to resume operations, schools must be recognized as safe, teachers must have been fully vaccinated and online classes must be maintained for those who cannot attend school.
To date, only two schools in Can Gio District have proposed allowing the first, second, sixth, ninth and 12th graders to return to in-person classes.
