All Schools in Beijing To Close as of Friday, Jan 22

原创 beijingkids theBeijinger

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All schools in Beijing, including international schools and training centers, are to close all in-person classes from tomorrow afternoon onwards, according to announcements from the Beijing Education Commission.

Despite the Chinese New Year holiday break being right around the corner, the commission made the move to cut in-person classes after an entire school in Daxing district was quarantined earlier this week, as a result of one asymptomatic 9-year-old attending classes there.

To make matters worse, after conducting preliminary genetic sequencing, authorities suspect that the strain in Daxing is related to a strain of COVID-19 circulating around Europe and thought to be more contagious.

Initially, the directive was only for kindergartens but was subsequently extended to all grades out of an abundance of caution. And in a meeting with the city’s international schools this morning, the commission made it clear that the policy applies to their institutions as well.

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Incidentally, all but the upper grades of Beijing’s public schools were already due to break for the Chinese New Year holiday on Friday.

It’s still unclear when schools will be able to resume on-site learning but some people close to school administrations suspect that it will likely be sometime after the Chinese New Year vacation ends in mid-February.

The move does not come as a surprise to public schools, as they were already under direction to close earlier than their normally scheduled Chinese New Year holiday. At international schools – which generally only take a one or two week Chinese New Year break – many parents, teachers, and administrators were thrown for a loop, as they had hoped to avoid an early shutdown.

However, having dealt with online classes for the better half of last year, most schools have since developed contingency plans, knowing that they could be relegated to online learning at any time.