Coronavirus causes millions to home school

Millions of children across the globe have been affected by school closures amid fears that the coronavirus could spread.

Along with the mainland China, schools in Hong Kong, Macao, Vietnam, Mongolia, Japan, Iran, Pakistan, Iraq and Italy have been closed over fears pupils and staff members may be exposed to coronavirus.

Instead of physically visiting to the school some students are keeping up their education via online, sitting in front of the laptop in the time of the coronavirus, reported CNN.

Children in remote areas have taken lessons via education programs over the radio.

A teacher gives a lecture with her smart phone during an online class at a middle school in Donghai in China's eastern Jiangsu province on February 17, 2020. Photo: Collected

The components of home schooling are: a laptop, an internet connection, and a bit of focus. The type of online study differs from school to school even from country to country.

In a bid to stop the spread of the disease, schools in China are closed, leaving around 180 million school-aged children stuck at home. China has recently started broadcasting primary school classes on public television and launched a cloud learning platform based on its national curriculum that 50 million students can use simultaneously.

"We cannot give the teachers a response even though they want it. So they feel bad and we feel awkward as well," an 18-year-old student of China, Huang Yiyang said, reported CNN.

Across China, students of primary and middle school required to provide online learning, according to state media agency Xinhua. The different learning style has led to innovation.

On the other hand, in Hong Kong, where schools have been closed for a month, some teachers are doing things differently.

Students at a Hong Kong school work together in small groups on Google Hangouts so they can all see and talk to each other.

Students in Hong Kong and mainland China have been isolated for weeks while in Italy the number of people infected with the novel coronavirus increased as a result remote learning has just started.

A combined population of about 15 million have faced school closer in the northern regions of Lombardy and Veneto including the cities Milan and Venice.

Senior grade students are potentially facing bigger problems than falling behind on their schoolwork.

Psychological effects of the home schooling

Home schooling can effect children psychologically, according to experts.

"The loss of routine and the loss of social activity could have a big impact on children, who were also stuck inside with their parents during an already stressful time," Hong Kong-based mental health expert Odile Thiang said.

Chris Dede, a professor at Harvard University's Graduate School of Education, said there were plenty of studies showing the negative psychological effects on students who had been isolated from their peers after suffering serious illnesses, reported CNN.

Furthermore, some parents have raised concerns over paying expensive international school fees when their child isn't doing regular schooling.

Is studying remotely a good thing?

It's not the first time that schools have had to shut down or experiment with remote learning.

In countries with particularly harsh winters, children sometimes find their school canceled for "snow days." In Hong Kong, some schools canceled classes last year over the ongoing pro-democracy protests.

Artificial intelligence has invented a way to ensure students in rural communities get a better education, reported CNN.

A mix of online and face-to-face teaching is better than learning entirely offline, or entirely online, according to Dede. But the crucial thing isn't the medium, he said -- it is the quality and the method of teaching.

"The worst thing for children would be isolated, at home, without emotional support from their friends, without the opportunity to have a skilled educator to help them learn," he said.

"We have social media,internet, and we have smart phones. So the degree of isolation and the degree of lost opportunity to learn would have been much greater if this happened two decades ago," he said.