“A mother, A, who was helping her seven-year-old son with his homework, suddenly showed extreme stress and tried to kill her son. My son barely got out of the way, but after 30 minutes after work, my husband, B, returned home and found his unconscious wife in a locked room.” (Hong Kong South China Morning Post report)
“Since the school closed in March 2020, some items have yielded worse than our concerns. In the case of mathematics, when comparing achievement in fall 2019 and fall 2020, it was about 5-10% lower than that of classmates in the previous year.” (Research report from Brookings Institute)
It is schools that have closed their doors first in the world due to the prolonged pandemic (a pandemic pandemic). It was because of concern that it could become a hotbed for group infection. The problem is that’non-face-to-face classes’ are getting longer. As both students and parents are facing limitations, side effects are occurring one after another. The responses of each country, which had been at odds with each other, also began to diverge.
Regarding the tragic incident that took place in Hong Kong in December of last year, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) said, “Corona 19 is seriously damaging the mental health of Hong Kongers. This tragedy shows what long-term stress can cause. ” The report on the academic achievements of American students, released in the same month, hints at the aftereffects for society as a whole in another aspect.
![In a classroom at a school in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, on the 28th of last month (local time), students are collecting samples of novel coronavirus infection (Corona 19) by putting cotton swabs directly into their noses. [로이터=연합뉴스]](https://i0.wp.com/pds.joins.com/news/component/htmlphoto_mmdata/202102/04/954804bc-19c4-4853-87d1-b6aab4751696.jpg?w=560&ssl=1)
In a classroom at a school in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, on the 28th of last month (local time), students are collecting samples of novel coronavirus infection (Corona 19) by putting cotton swabs directly into their noses. [로이터=연합뉴스]
“Academic achievement is rapidly declining… A bigger blow to the low-income class”
How much would the student’s’one year lost’ be converted into a visible number? According to the Financial Times (FT) on the 1st (local time), the British Institute of Finance (IFS) announced that students in the UK who had not attended school for half a year due to Corona 19 could lose £350 billion (about 533 trillion won) over their lifetime. did. This is a result of keeping in mind that one year of education in developed countries increases personal income by about 8% per year. Based on this, IFS diagnosed that “the long-term impact of learning loss will be slow but significant.”
On the 21st, the Ifo Institute in Munich, Germany, also warned that “If online classes in Germany are maintained until the end of February, the future income of students could be reduced by an average of 4.5%.” The loss is 3,300 trillion euros (4414 trillion), although there is a difference in the number of students, it is predicted that there will be about 9 times more losses than the UK study.
What is more worrisome than the overall decline is the widening relative gap. There are warnings that the gap between the class that can compensate for the gap in school with private education and the low-income class who does not can widen unprecedentedly. IFS feared that “unless the budget for education programs is significantly expanded, children from disadvantaged backgrounds will be hit hard.”
US “Resume School”…英‧獨 “Prematurely”
Current status of resumption of school attendance worldwide. Graphic = Kim Hyun-seo [email protected]
Each country’s response to this dilemma began to diverge.
In the United States, the world’s No. 1 cumulative confirmed case, preparations are in full swing after President Joe Biden’s inauguration. President Biden said in his inaugural address on the 20th of last month that “you can teach children in a safe school,” and immediately signed an executive order that contained guidelines for school attendance and support tracking viral contact.
Conservative quarantine experts are also directly advocating for the need to normalize school to lift the blockade. On the 29th, Anthony Pouch, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) in the United States, held a video conference with more than 6,000 teachers, saying, “It is for the interests of children, the interests of parents, and the community. “We can’t get back to normal until we get the kids back to school.”
Following the US, countries such as Italy, Romania, and Scotland have started or are preparing to resume school.
On the other hand, Britain and Germany are still cautious about resuming school. This is because the pandemic began again last year after rushing to resume school early, causing great confusion. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the extension of the school blockade on the 27th, saying, “I understand the frustrations of students, teachers, and parents.” He said that twice as many patients as at the time of the first spread were hospitalized.”
On the 30th, Ralph Brinkhaus, the head of the German Christian Democratic Party (CDU) and the Christian Socialist Party (CSU), also said, “It is better to take stronger measures now than to exhaust everyone by going back and forth.” Israel, the first in the world to vaccination against adolescents aged 16-18, is still premature to resume school.
CDC “Schools are Safer”… “Concerns about group infection still remain”
Studies are also being published that help the Biden administration’s plan to normalize school attendance. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on the 26th that “the steep spread that often occurred in workplaces or communal facilities where staff were concentrated was not reported in schools.”
The World Health Organization (WHO) also said, “In the case of children under the age of 10, the susceptibility of COVID-19 infection (possibility of infection) and infectivity are low. It was around 8%.” This means that the risk is relatively low compared to other age groups.
The position of an expert on whether to resume school. Graphic = Kim Hyun-seo [email protected]
However, it is realistically difficult to expect the resumption of school to occur smoothly only with the results of this study. This is because a number of stakeholders, including not only students, but also parents, families, and teachers, are intertwined with schools.
In the case of the United States, the resumption of school after 10 months was missed as a teacher union in Chicago, the third largest school district, refused to go to work due to safety concerns for teachers. It is because of the complaint that teachers are not designated as essential industrial workers and therefore cannot get the vaccine. On the 29th, Pouch’s video talk was also to change the minds of these teachers.
Experts are still concerned about the outbreak. Celso Kunya, head of the Department of Medical Microbiology at Nova University, said, “In situations where there are continued cases of cases, not only schools, but also any meetings can make holes in the quarantine system.”
Evan Anderson, a pediatrician at Emory Medical University, also said, “The safety and efficacy of (vaccine) are guaranteed by conducting clinical trials in children, as most of the vaccines that are currently approved for urgent use have undergone clinical trials in adults over 18 years of age. “Even if the school does its best, the risk of infection is bound to exist.”
The Korean government’s choice, a month ahead of the start of the new semester, is also paying attention, as many countries around the world continue to discuss it.
First of all, the government has only issued a direction to expand classes at elementary, middle and high schools starting in March. Kang Deuk-gu, a member of the National Assembly’s Board of Education, As a result of an emergency survey of 10,000 faculty, parents, and students, 78% agreed to expand school attendance.Said that.
An official from the Ministry of Health and Welfare said, “There is a possibility of teacher infection due to the problem of asymptomatic infections, and there is also a recent group infection in the school, so we are not without concern.” You must first check and judge.”
Reporter Kim Hong-bum [email protected]