Schools Allowed To Hold Small Face-to-face Classes

The government has announced that primary, secondary and special schools, as well as private tuition centres, will be allowed to resume small face-to-face classes with some conditions from next week, with this arrangement to remain in place until the Lunar New Year.

Education Secretary Kevin Yeung said on Monday that the authorities understand that a prolonged class suspension would affect students' learning, and some schools have expressed the desire to maintain a degree of face-to-face lessons.

He said schools can resume half-day face-to-face classes, but for no more than one-sixth of their total number of students at a time.

At present, small groups of primary six students are allowed into schools to sit exams, and secondary six students are permitted to attend face-to-face lessons.

"We wish to give the schools as well as the parents some sort of planning for a longer term … Instead of week by week, they now have about four or five weeks that they can plan... [including] which year of students could come back first," Yeung explained.

But he said kindergartens must stay closed until after the Lunar New Year holiday in February.

Other social-distancing measures will remain in place for at least two more weeks, and officials warned that these may be further tightened if there is a resurgence of Covid-19 cases.

Meanwhile, Health Secretary Sophia Chan said that although the daily number of new infections is decreasing, the trend is "extremely slow" and there is still the risk of a rebound.

She said the government is determined to bring the number of new cases back to zero again, and she called on people to exercise restraint and stop gathering in large groups.

Hong Kong on Monday reported 53 new cases, of which 43 were locally acquired. Among them, six were contracted from unknown sources.