Many schools in Nghe An still welcome students to class.

Highland students go to school

Up to now, Huoi Tu Commune (Ky Son) is still a "clean" and safe area, with no Covid-19 patients. Before the new school year, understanding the difficulties in implementing online teaching, Huoi Tu 2 Primary School (Ky Son) requested to teach according to its own plan, which is to teach in person but still ensure distance and safety.

This morning, students of Huoi Tu 2 Primary School went to school. Photo: PV

According to the above plan, this morning, instead of gathering all students of grades 3, 4, 5 and part of grade 2 students to the main school to teach in the form ofboardingNow, students from each village study at their own school. The school has not organized boarding for students yet, and to have enough students, each day they will study in 2 shifts (morning and afternoon). In addition to the priority for the first grade, the remaining classes will be arranged into combined classes for grades 2 and 3 into 1 class and grades 4 and 5 into 1 class.

Organizing direct learning has initially helped schools to be more convenient in organizing teaching and learning during the epidemic. However, it is also revealing difficulties and shortcomings.

Sharing about this, teacher Nguyen The Vinh - Principal of the school said: When moving to a remote location, the most worrying thing is the lack of teachers, because the number of teachers must double to be enough to teach the class. Moreover, the facilities and desks are not enough, in many classes students have to sit on chairs without desks, and it is difficult to arrange places for teachers to eat and rest. The quality of learning is also not guaranteed, and the arrangement of teachers for specific subjects will not be possible due to the lack of teachers.

Lang Khe Primary School (Con Cuong) checks students' body temperature before entering school. Photo: PV

Currently, Ky Son district has switched to applying epidemic prevention measures according to Directive 19, so basically people's activities and lives have returned to a new normal state (both ensuring epidemic prevention and control and developing the economy and society in the new situation). In that context, many schools are looking forward to having adjustments to stabilize teaching and learning soon.

Mr. Phan Van Thiet - Head of the Department of Education and Training of Ky Son district said: Organizing teaching at separate schools is only a temporary solution in areas that have done a good job of preventing and fighting the epidemic. However, the epidemic is basically under control, but we should not be subjective, so it is expected that this afternoon, the department will work with the district People's Committee to come up with a suitable teaching plan according to the new situation.

Previously, according to a summary, Ky Son district still had 7 schools being used as centralized quarantine areas. Therefore, if centralized learning is implemented on a district-wide scale, the district also needs to soon have a plan to return the facilities to the schools.

At Lang Khe Primary School (Con Cuong), this morning, students were also welcomed back to in-person school after the entire district implemented Directive 19.

Students of Thach Ngan Primary School (Con Cuong) organized direct teaching this morning. Photo: PV

Before entering the school gate, students were separated, had their temperature taken, and washed their hands with sanitizer. Ms. Truong Thi Xuan - Principal of Lang Khe Primary School said: Previously, although there was no school opening and a centralized opening ceremony, teachers and parents also took turns cleaning, clearing, and sanitizing the campus and classrooms. At the same time, disinfectants were sprayed to prevent the risk of diseases for children during the changing seasons. The school has also proactively proposed teaching plans depending on the actual situation of the locality. Accordingly, if Directive 15 is still applied, direct teaching will be conducted but divided into shifts to ensure social distancing. However, from 0:00 on September 6, the locality will implement Directive 19, accordingly, students will be able to go to school as usual. However, to ensure safety in disease prevention and control, the school still divides into 2 shifts (morning - afternoon) for the main school. There are 2 other schools in Dong Tien and Yen Hoa villages, because the number of students per class is less than 20, so they will study in 1 shift.

However, at secondary school level like Tra Lan Secondary School, teaching and learning are still conducted online. Photo: MH

Mr. Le Thanh An - Head of the Department of Education and Training of Con Cuong district said: Currently, in the district, schools have implemented both methods: online teaching and direct teaching. However, from 0:00 this morning (September 6), the district has implemented Directive 19, so it is expected that by Thursday, the Department will direct all primary and secondary schools in the area to switch to direct teaching for students on the basis of implementing "5K" to prevent and control the epidemic. As for preschools, they are currently waiting for instructions and guidance from the Department: "This is the golden time that schools need to take advantage of to teach students. At the same time, schools also need to prepare conditions to practice online teaching. Because if the epidemic situation becomes complicated, the locality returns to implementing Directive 15, we will also proactively continue to implement direct teaching at the primary level, dividing shifts, dividing classes to ensure social distancing and online teaching for secondary schools.

If the district applies Directive 16, teaching will be completely switched to online teaching and combined with the form of assigning lessons to students in difficult areas and schools in remote villages.

Flexibility in online teaching

On the afternoon of September 5, Official Dispatch No. 08 - CV/BCĐ issued by the Provincial Steering Committee for Covid-19 Prevention and Control has really "relieved difficulties" for many localities in implementing school year tasks, especially in 13 units that have switched to social distancing or applied anti-epidemic measures according to Directive 15 and Directive 16. However, at present, the implementation will only be carried out when schools ensure safety in disease prevention and control.

The way to the house to give homework to students of Que Phong district teacher. Photo: Chien Thang

In Quynh Luu district, Mr. Tran Xuan Nhuong - Head of the district's Department of Education and Training said: Last night, after the decision to switch to social distancing according to Directive 15, the district also discussed switching to a new teaching plan. But for now, because neighboring localities still have Covid-19 patients, we will still implement online teaching for all schools. Currently, 100% of schools in Quynh Luu district have organized online teaching and about 80% of students are eligible to attend.

Teachers from Tien Phong Secondary School (Que Phong) go to each student's house to deliver homework. Photo: Chien Thang.

On this morning's school day, secondary school students across the province also entered their first online class through the system.online teachingProvincial LMS. According to the assessment of the education and training departments, after many days of training and familiarization, in the first lesson, students basically grasped the operations. However, local network congestion still occurs because there may be too many students accessing at the same time.

A representative of the Department of Education and Training of Nghia Dan district said: We have an operation room to manage the organization of online teaching and learning of schools. However, this morning, there were still situations where students could not access the class due to network congestion and teachers had to flexibly switch to the Zoom classroom. We have also promptly reported this issue to the supplier to soon have a solution.

Students in Vinh city study online on the first day of the school year. Photo: MH

In fact, these are also problems that the Education sector has anticipated, because Nghe An is a locality with a very large number of students and a very large number of simultaneous accesses. Previously, to overcome this situation, the Education sector had advocated dedicating the first week of school for students and teachers to get used to the new teaching method.

Teaching system operation room at the Department of Education and Training of Quynh Luu district. Photo: MH

Mr. Nguyen Tien Dung - Head of Secondary Education Department, Department of Education and Training said: On the first day, through feedback from localities, we received some cases of network congestion. However, this can be gradually resolved. Specifically, on the LMS system, there are currently 3 classrooms for use including Zoom, Google, Microsoft Team, but currently most teachers only use Zoom classrooms, so network congestion is inevitable. Therefore, the Department recommends that teachers should switch to another classroom platform for smooth learning.

In addition, the network may be congested due to unstable wifi connection. Therefore, it is recommended that teachers use a direct network connection to maintain stability, ensuring the teaching and learning of teachers and students.