Like other coronavirus-stricken cities and provinces nationwide, Da Nang will see a ceremony to welcome in the upcoming 2020 – 2021 academic year go virtual on 5 September as planned by the Ministry of Education and Training. Also, schools across Da Nang will open their online classes for their pupils and students during the city's compulsory social distancing period until further notice.

Virtual classrooms will be opened to school pupils and university students across Da Nang during during the city's compulsory social distancing period until further notice.

Deputy Director of the Department of Education and Training Mai Tan Linh said that the virtual ceremony to welcome in the new school year follows the guidelines issued by the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET), with the main target of both ensuring safety and creating a joyous atmosphere for school pupils.

All schools across the city must develop their specific plans on opening their online classes, an initiative move to ensure both pandemic prevention measures whilst continuing their education programmes in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

In particular, students and pupils will have smooth access to online learning resources, including the application of learning software, the provision of teachers and exercises to learners, and the reception of feedback from them via websites, Email, Facebook, Zalo, Viber or other social network tools.

In fact, through these online teaching and learning resources, both teachers and students still enjoy flexible connections.  Also, they can interact with each other and access unlimited resources.  In particular, teachers can create as many lessons as they want on online learning applications.

For the time being, primary, junior and senior high school pupils will attend online classes with their teachers instead of face-to-face classes due to coronavirus school closures. Their teachers, therefore, will use such social media as Zalo and Facebook to create a closer connection with their pupils for the sake of effective online teaching and learning tasks.

In particular, during their learning from home, 2nd -5th graders will be taught by their teachers to strictly promote their self-study and review all knowledge that they have accessed previously by frequently doing teachers-assigned exercises until their school comebacks.

As for Year 1 pupils, teachers must stay in touch with parents by sending appropriate plans for them to educate their children at home during school closures.

With regard to e-teaching resources applicable to junior and senior high schools, to ensure pupils still receive enough knowledge as in a face-to-face class, teachers are required to re-designing teaching by developing innovative and collaborative approaches, with a focus on flexibly using copyrighted teaching software with high security to keep their lessons continued and counsel students in the most effective manner.

The application of online teaching during the school closure is now hailed as the optimal solution in complying with the city's compulsory social distancing rules and ensuring the smooth running of the curricula in tertiary establishments.  With this proactive and flexible approach, online learning has proved to be effective, not only in managing students during the city's social distancing period but also ensuring “continuing learning during coronavirus school closures”.

By NGOC PHU –Translated by A.T