Thai schools prepare for nationwide reopening July 1

Thailand’s distance-learning experiment has been declared a failure, after the Education Ministry’s surveys found 60-70% of students aren’t ready to use television as the main channel for their studies. Now the ministry and schools are gearing up for classrooms to reopen nationwide. Thailand’s education minister says the ministry had to adjust its plan of airing lessons via television for long distance learning as part of measures to prevent the spread of Covid-19. The survey found most students consume media via their smartphones, which can be costly.

Measures following a recommendation by the Ministry of Public Health will be taken, including a limit of 20 to 25 students per classroom. The secretary dismissed a report that there will be regulations on which style of face masks students will be allowed to wear, saying sanitary and protection measures are the priority. His comment came after criticism in social media over a picture of a school bulletin board at a school showing plain-coloured face masks as examples of masks which students would be allowed to use once the school was reopened.

UNESCO as well as UNICEF praised Thailand’s preparation for reopening schools,

Meanwhile, Bangkok’s deputy governor says the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration, aka City Hall, is studying models from countries like Denmark and France, where schools have already reopened, to find suitable measures for Thai schools to reopen July 1. The current plan is that schools under the BMA will be required to keep students and their desks, 1-2 metres apart.

“Students will be allowed to play only in small groups and they must wash their hands every hour or more often. Desks, doorknobs, playgrounds and infection-prone risky areas will be cleaned twice a day.”

“Students will not be allowed to eat together. A sick student must go home straight away and enter self-quarantine.”

He added that students will not be allowed to borrow anything from one another and parents will not be allowed to enter schools.

SOURCES: Chiang Rai Times | Bangkok Post