Remote classes recommended for high school seniors

The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education has recommended switching to remote classes for senior high school students from Thursday, which is one week earlier than the government guidelines, in response to the recent increase of COVID-19 cases. Earlier, the Ministry of Education announced a plan to provide all high school classes across the nation online from November 26, a week before the national college entrance exam.

“We strongly recommend all schools to make a switch to online classes, at least for senior high school students, from now due to COVID-19,” said the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education. Sixty-seven percent of all high schools in Seoul have already made the switch before Thursday. Therefore, the education office’s recommendation is for the remaining 77 high schools. Although the recommendation is not mandatory, most schools are expected to accept it as most senior high school students have covered the scope of the college entrance exam and are studying on their own at school. Some students are not attending school by submitting applications for outside-school activities due to concerns about potential COVID-19 infection. According to the Seoul education office, there is no COVID-19 patient so far among those scheduled to take the college entrance exam in Seoul.

As the number of new COVID-19 cases is on the rise recently, test-takers and their parents have requested an earlier switch to online classes. Many schools outside Seoul have also implemented remote classes limitedly for senior high school students earlier than the government guidelines. As of Thursday, the number of schools that have suspended physical classes at school due to COVID-19nis 130, 43 more than the previous day.


Ye-Na Choi yena@donga.com · Su-Yeon Kim sykim@donga.com