Image Credit: Facebook / Government of BC

By James Peters

COVID-19

Hybrid in-person-online education system likely to return in September: minister

Jun 2, 2020 | 1:27 PM

VICTORIA — B.C. teachers can look forward to juggling online and in-person education once again in the fall.

Education Minister Rob Fleming, speaking outside a middle school in Victoria Tuesday (June 2), told media that about one-third of public school students returned to in-person classes this week.

At the same time, teachers are delivering online learning for those whose parents decided not to send them back to schools. Education has been delivered primarily online since March, when the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in B.C.

Fleming says that split will continue until a vaccine is widely available.

“What you’ve heard Dr. Bonnie Henry and other officials in government and in my ministry talk about is to be prepared for all contingencies,” said Fleming. “It’s likely that we will have to have a hybrid system again until we have a vaccine and until the pandemic is officially over in this part of the world and around the globe.”

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Having said that, Fleming emphasized the need for the education system to remain flexible based on how the COVID-19 virus behaves in the coming months.

“It’s likely that we will have a situation (where) we’ve flattened the curve but we have to prepare for a second wave in British Columbia. We have to prepare to be able to move forward as we have done this Monday and move backward when we get into the fall and winter,” said Fleming.

Parents will likely have to wait until just before classes are set to resume next fall before getting a better picture of what schooling will look like.

“It’s really hard to tell. We’ll, of course, be updating the media throughout the summer. We’ll make an official call as to how strong the restart of school is going to look like come Labour Day for the next school year a little closer to that date — I would say around late August.”