As applied to less than 300 students
Flexible guidelines may be promoted in the lower grades of elementary school.
Materials” alt=”At a high school in Seoul, a teacher conducts distance classes with students. At a high school in Seoul, a teacher conducts distance classes with students. <한겨레> material
After President Moon Jae-in and Lee Nak-yeon, together with Democratic Party representatives, Prime Minister Jeong Sye-gyun emphasized “school classes,” the proportion of lower-grade elementary school students is expected to increase the proportion of school classes rather than distance classes, even if the Corona 19 epidemic continues in March. To this end, the educational authorities are expected to push forward a plan that allows the lower grades of elementary school to flexibly follow the guidelines for overall academic management. On the 24th, the Ministry of Education said, “There is a lot of concern about educational gaps and caregiving gaps due to the prolonged remote classes, and from the new semester of 2021, we are considering a plan to increase the number of days to attend school more mainly for the lower grades.” The day before, Prime Minister Jeong Sye-gyun mentioned the results of the analysis of the World Health Organization, saying, “If the outbreak of the community is not serious and only the quarantine rules are followed, the school is unlikely to be a major cause of the spread of infection.” In fact, the Ministry of Education gave an order to’review the implementation of school classes’. On the same day, Kwon Joon-wook, head of the 2nd vice president of the Central Defense Countermeasures Headquarters, said, “We will re-evaluate the risk of Corona 19 in the lower grades of elementary school.” According to the results of the review by the quarantine and education authorities, there is a greater possibility that lower grade elementary school classes will expand compared to last year. An official from the Ministry of Education said, “We maintain a large framework for determining the scope of the number of attendance classes according to the stage of distancing, but there are discussions on how to open up the education office and schools so that they can flexibly manage their academic affairs.” Even last year, the density limit was not applied to small schools with less than 300 students, but this year there is a possibility that this type of application will be excluded for kindergarten or lower elementary school age. However, the Ministry of Education said, “In the second semester of last year, there were many cases of transmission within schools, and the results of the review by the quarantine authorities should be examined first.” Due to the corona 19 epidemic, education authorities have been running academic affairs in a way that limits the range (density) of the number of people who can attend school by school in accordance with the’social distance’ stage for the past year. The basic framework is that in steps 1~1.5, only two-thirds of all students go to school, in steps 2~2.5, less than one-third of all students go to school, and in step 3, full distance classes are provided. As a result, there were schools in the metropolitan area where the actual number of attendance days was only a third of the previous year. Accordingly, as the educational gap and the care gap deepened, voices from the education community were raised that the need to expand school attendance by creating a school environment capable of quarantine. A co-authored thesis by President of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Jung Eun-kyung, which was recently published with the content that “the spread of Corona 19 in schools in May-July last year was rare” also contributed to this. President Moon Jae-in emphasized the necessity of attending school, saying, “Remote classes cannot be a fundamental alternative” at a New Year’s press conference on the 18th, and Democratic Party representative Lee Nak-yeon said, “Even lower grades are first responsible for attending school. Let’s review the way to do it” By Choi Won-hyung, staff reporter [email protected]