Online school classes to open next Thursday

Elementary, middle, and high schools will open online next Thursday after being postponed due to the COVID-19 outbreak with seniors of middle and high schools being the first to take online courses. Meanwhile, the national college entrance exam is scheduled to take place on December 3. Both are unprecedented cases.

The Ministry of Education announced on Tuesday that the opening of schools will be postponed for three more days from its original schedule on Monday while senior students of middle and high schools will become the first to take online courses. A week later, the first- and second-year students of middle and high schools, as well as the fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-year students of elementary schools, will join. Lastly, the first-, second-, and third-year students of elementary schools will start to take remote classes on April 20. The date of students physically attending schools has not been decided yet. Preschools and daycare centers that cannot open online will remain closed.

“We are reviewing the measure to provide both offline and online courses by schools, school years, and classes depending on the spread of COVID-19,” Education Minister Yoo Eun-hye said on Tuesday. She estimated that students will be able to attend schools from the end of April.

College entrance procedures, including rolling admissions, are also subject to schedule change as the national college entrance exam has been postponed for two weeks. School records related to rolling admissions should be completed by Sept. 16, instead of Aug. 31. The Korean Council for University Education and the Korean Council for University College Education will announce the revised college entrance schedule in April.


Jae-Myung Park jmpark@donga.com · Ye-Na Choi yena@donga.com