Comment by obiefernandez
5 years ago
My wife is a high-school teacher in Shenzhen and her school has suspended physical attendance thru Feb 17th, possibly to be extended until the start of March. However, they are requiring teachers and students to work full-time from home using online assignments and communications channels. It struck me that this is indeed a huge experiment in remote working, even for professions that don't typically have that option at all whatsoever (i.e. school teachers).
They have that option in the US, just not with public schools. I’ve been told that even public schools work that way in Australia under normal conditions.
Most people can’t work from home because of local tradition not because it doesn’t work.
I've heard from relatives that it is the same thing in Hong Kong. Last time I talked to them they said it has been quite difficult so far. I'm not sure if they have had any training to prepare for this at all or if they are just winging it.
Hong Kong has gone further - schools are closed until at least the first week of March.
Lack of space at home might also be an issue. Hong Kong flats can be pretty small.
Many homes aren’t really suited to WFH, especially regular WFH. They might be noisy during the day, lack space, lack decent network connections, etc...you also can’t really WFH from a quiet public space like a library (not that HK really has those).
Schools in Singapore are regularly required to practice the so-called "e-learning" every semester/quarter. It's quite common for richer Asian countries that had been through SARS to think of these contingency plans.
Also it was nothing fancy. Just recorded video lectures, and an online forum.
> However, they are requiring teachers and students to work full-time from home using online assignments and communications channels.
They did that 20 years ago during SARS, too.
interesting, I'm very curious which tools she's using for all this :)
they're about to start experimenting with Zoom, which should be super interesting especially with primary/middle school students. a lot of the teachers are quite unhappy about it