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How China’s Schools Are Getting Through COVID-19
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The novel coronavirus swept across China around January 20, with the Chinese New Year celebration underway. By late March, as U.S. schools were just beginning to shut down, Chinese schools had already been closed for about 10 weeks—and some were beginning to reopen.To get more news about China business school, you can visit acem.sjtu.edu.cn official website.
The education sector was squarely in the middle of China’s fight against COVID and the after effects continue to be felt: In early April, the government announced it would delay important exams, including the gaokao, the university entrance exam in China.
In a webinar recently hosted by EdSurge, with support from school networking platform ClassIn, Chinese school leaders shared their insights and lessons learned. Based on that dialogue, as well as other research (including this guide developed by Beijing Normal University and UNESCO), we’ve pulled together some early lessons learned from China’s experience.
Because of the very close relationship between the Chinese government and industry, China took some unique actions. Even so, here are some observations about what Chinese educators discovered as they tried to keep learning going remotely.
1. The Government’s Role: Decisive, Sweeping Policy Changes
Few countries have central governments that literally call the shots for the private sector. China does. Since January, officials made many big decisions about when schools and education companies would open or close, and what resources were available to support learning.
China’s Ministry of Education (MOE) issued school closure policies for the entire country between January 20 and February 8, affecting China’s 278 million students across primary and postsecondary grades. Wuhan, the epicenter of the epidemic, was locked down on January 23. Tutoring centers and daycares closed. The central government suggested K-12 and higher-ed delay starting the new semester and postpone any regional and national exams.
But along with shutting down bricks and mortar schools, China also beefed up two existing virtual ones. One platform, Empower Learning, was built by the government, in collaboration with China’s seven largest edtech companies, offering digital K-12 curriculum. The platform provides live streaming courses that students can tap into from their phone or computer at home. The MOE also created its own site: Educloud. This site features videos, teaching plans and communities of the best teachers’ lessons recorded over the past eight years.
Although both platforms existed before the COVID crisis to provide free online learning resources to students, they added scheduling tools to help educators select and share materials with students and widely circulated them to the public once the schools closed.
After February 8, the MOE worked with provincial education departments to pick dates for reopening schools. Although not all schools opened at the same time, the government sent clear signals about changes. In addition, in late March, the MOE announced it would delay the university entrance exam, the gaokao, for a month.