亚洲的困境 - 现在是否回到学校？

即使针对COVID-19的滞后疫苗接种，恢复亚洲恢复课程的呼吁也增加了健康风险。

‘Close open, close open,’ goes a lesson on the first day at kindergarten as the barely six-year-old child closes and opens his hand and learns his first lessons in anatomy and language.

That basic lesson may well be the mantra today as the world debates and decides on whether to reopen schools now or keep them closed a little longer as the vaccines arrive and theCOVID-19pandemic winds up.

In the US, Canada and Europe, schools are reopening because they can rely on vaccinations and mandatory safety protocols. In Asia, countries like China, India, Japan, Singapore and South Korea are leading the drive to reopen.

但是，如果他们有可用的疫苗，其他大多数亚洲国家仍在进行接种疫苗。问题似乎甚至都不是疫苗犹豫but vaccine unavailability.

As the COVID-19 pandemic goes on, educators are unsure whether it is time to reopen the schools or not. School closures since the outbreak of COVID-19 in early 2020 have disruptedchildren’seducation（并剥夺了全世界的免费学校用餐）。在整个东亚和太平洋，此类封闭已经影响325 million children， 根据UNESCO数字。

Dropouts may not return

UNICEF警告说，远离学校的时间越长，他们回来的可能性就越小。至少2.7 million childrenacross the region will not return to school when they reopen. This is on top of the 35 million in East Asia and Pacific who had already dropped out of the educational system.

And when children are out of school, they are at increased risk of violence, abuse and exploitation. Girls face the additional risk of teen pregnancy and early marriage. The世界银行估计that the number of children not meeting the minimum requirements for reading has increased by 20 per cent during school closures.

联合国儿童基金会执行董事Henrietta H. Fore在COVID-19大流行期间谈论教育。视频来源：联合国儿童基金会。

“Schools play a vital role in the well-being of students, families and their communities, and the link between education and健康has never been more evident,”说Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general.

In the face of such arguments, it seems that going back to school is the necessary option — the sooner the better. It is easy to be alarmed by such arguments, however. We still need to look at the other side of the issue before we decide. The better option is, as teacher says, think before you leap.

Chances are that if we reopen schools prematurely, we may be forced to close again sooner than later, as various UN studies have shown. In the Philippines, schools remained completely closed throughout most of 2020 and early 2021. The same was true for most students in Indonesia.

为了回应1月Covid-19的新爆发，学校在马来西亚，蒙古，缅甸和泰国再次关闭，进一步破坏了对最近才回到教室的儿童的教育。开放和关闭不是一个不错的选择。

Face to face or blended learning?

但是，如果我们今年回到学校，那么模型可能主要是在小型课程中以在线学习或数字学习，或者在很大程度上进行模块学习，或者通过一些数字学习，以菲律宾的经验进行图案化，这可能是主要是面对面的学习，或这些公式的组合。

主要是在线学习并不是数百万个处境不利儿童的长期解决方案。过去一年的亚洲体验再次引起了人们的关注数字划分。Around 80 million children are still unable to access digital learning at home and the pandemic only deepens the learning crisis.

“Around 80 million children are still unable to access digital learning at home and the pandemic only deepens the learning crisis”

克里斯平·马斯拉格（Crispin Maslog）

On the other hand, fully face-to-face learning also is not possible now or anytime in one or two years because I foresee the COVID-19 pandemic will still be with us in Asia in one intensity or another.

The more realistic scenario is the blended system of the Philippines. The country’s教育部门has offered its blended learning as a “good and valid way” to deliver education during the COVID-19 pandemic and even after the pandemic.

Some 27 million students in the Philippines follow the distance learning system largely through modules and, in very small part, online. Blended learning includes minimal face-to-face instruction, but some of the lessons could be learned at home through online media and modules. Children do not have to come to school every day. There are fewer classes with fewer learners. A great part of the lessons could be learned at home.

就我们所知，我们可能永远不会再回到旧系统 - 每个班级面对面。相反，我们可能会采用联合国儿童基金会吹捧的各种型号。他们包括governmentsproviding education online, on television and radio, and via mobile phones.

在Timor-leste中，与2019年相比，越来越多的孩子通过在线平台，视频或广播访问了远程学习。

In Thailand, children from low-income families at risk of dropping out receive cash grants to keep children in schools. Vietnam revised its curriculum to reduce academic pressure and stress on students. Educators now urge us to reimagine education systems, embrace grassroots innovations, and adopt community-basedtechnologyto reduce the digital gap.

一位菲律宾教育家告诉SciDev.Netthat it is time that universities re-examine their college curricula to determine if we can streamline higher education by teaching some courses online and use face-to-face teaching in others, COVID-19 or not. Some courses may be better taught online than in person, and vice versa, he adds.

Crispin C. Maslog, former journalist with Agence France-Presse, is an environmental activist and former science journalism professor, Silliman University and University of the Philippines Los Baños, Philippines. He is a founding member and now Chair of the Board, Asian Media Information and Communication Centre, Manila.

This piece was produced by SciDev.Net’s Asia & Pacific desk.