Hong Kong educators plan to apply lessons from the pandemic to guide the future of international school education

Pandemic-era criticism from parents saw schools sharpen up their remote and hybrid offerings though not every student thrived

Face-to-face learning is still prized by all but students’ flexibility and resilience has provided space for creative thinking about the structure of learning in the future

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After initial complaints from parents, schools improved their online and hybrid teaching during the pandemic, aided by a gratifying flexibility and resilience shown by many students. Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 12:00pm, 16 Jan 2023

Covid-19 had an undeniable impact on Hong Kong’s international schools. Somewhat understandably, not all parents were happy to be paying fees for an education their children weren’t getting the most out of, cooped up as they were at home in front of a laptop or tablet.

Fortunately, thanks to some quick thinking and ingenuity, Hong Kong’s international schools successfully lived up to their reputation for providing educational excellence and pivoted to new tech-driven ways of learning. And just as we’ve seen in the corporate world, some of the technological innovations that schools were forced to adopt due to Covid-19 may end up changing the education landscape forever.

“Schools and educators have been forced into a rethink. All schools had to go through a period of rapid learning, rapid change and responding to rapid challenges,” explains Christopher Chadwick, principal of the Korean International School (KIS) International Section. “I think the one area we all felt [was most challenging] was the shutout of our youngest students who were forced to stay home with online learning. This proved very difficult and we had to develop new apps to aid and support them.”

Chadwick believes there were both massive pros and cons when Hong Kong’s international schools shifted to a more remote, online teaching practice. Some students thrived while others struggled.

The Covid pandemic forced pupils and schools to switch to online learning – and both had new lessons to learn. Photo: Shutterstock

“We noticed that some of the boys were able to stay focused with online learning as they enjoyed working with computers and IT,” he says. “On the other hand, lack of face-to-face interaction caused depression and anxiety levels to rise among certain students.