A year of online school has pushed children from low-income families further down the learning curve
- A year of online learning from home has taken its toll on Hong Kong students, some of whom have had to deal with cramped flats or poor internet connections
- As they return to the classroom, teachers and parents assess the educational, emotional and physical impact of the pandemic on the city’s young people
When George Smith asked his secondary-school English students to record a book review for their online class, one video shocked him. Shot against a tube-lit backdrop filled with rows of salty snacks, a Form Three student had connected to the free Wi-fi at a 7-Eleven convenience store to film his presentation, away from his crowded flat in a Kowloon City public housing estate in Hong Kong, where the internet connection is notoriously unreliable.
When Smith surveyed his students last September, eight months into the pandemic, 62 per cent of his class were logging into lessons from their mobile phones. “You can’t lecture them for 40 minutes on grammar when they’re on their phone,” he says. And nor can they be expected to tap out exams or homework on one.
Maya, a Nepalese mother of three children in Primary Three and Five and Secondary One, says her children “have lost focus, they’re not really concentrating on their studies and when they have questions, they don’t feel as though they can ask their teachers”.
As a stay-at-home mum, Maya is well placed to monitor her children’s online attendance, and she has noticed a lack of motivation. Their grades are slipping and she is frustrated that she cannot help them more.
