Since it was found in Wuhan in December 2019, 2019-nCoV, the new-found disease, has gotten its attention from all over the world. People infected by the virus may develop varying degrees of symptoms, ranging from a fever or mild cough, to pneumonia or even death. Because of China’s massive population migration during the annual Spring Festival Travel Rush, the infection has spread throughout China’s provinces and cases have been found even abroad. By February 19, a total of 74,280 cases had been confirmed, 14,572 cured and 2,009 people had died. Apart from developing public healthcare systems and relief resources allocation, to prevent students from close contact during school time, the government has prompted unprecedented attention on online education to ensure the normal operation of the education system.
China’s Ministry of Education (MOE) announced that the 2020 spring semester for schools will be postponed due to the novel coronavirus outbreak on January 27. Later, with the development of prevention and control work, the education authorities made several announcements to ensure online education and students’ safety, including sharing online education resources to the university students for free and providing e-textbooks to primary and secondary school students. After February 10, the education department organized education institutions at all levels to ensure that schools can organize teachers to conduct online teaching according to local conditions, and also made arrangement to provide learning resources to the students from severely affected areas.
In response to the call, primary and secondary schools, universities and education companies also made efforts to support students’ needs in the extension of the winter break. National Could Platform for Primary and Secondary Schools (http://ykt.eduyun.cn/) was lunched on February 17. The courses are related to infection prevention, mental health and educational activities and content, rather than subjects that put extra pressure on students of primary and secondary schools, the MOE said. We, Advanced Innovation Center for Future Education of Beijing Normal University, constantly open the Smart Learning Partner platform to primary and secondary school teachers and students.
Student Huang Yahui takes online course at her home in Fengtai District of Beijing, capital of China, February 17, 2020. The beginning of the spring semester of 2020 in Beijing is delayed due to the novel coronavirus epidemic. Primary and secondary school students in Beijing, under the instruction of teachers, started to take online courses supplementarily on Monday, the original starting date of the spring semester. (Photo by Chen Zhonghao/Xinhua)
Although online education has been raised for several years, the online education is still a first attempt for most students and teachers. So teachers, students, and parents have both positive or negative comments. In this particular time, government, schools, companies, education administrators, teachers, students, and parents are making active efforts together. In recent years, the deep integration of the Internet and education has made great progress, we believe this could provide a rich variety of courses for students to choose.
