Forum: Keeping schools open integral to lower-income families

Students returning to Zhenghua Primary School on March 23, 2020. PHOTO: ST FILE

Many parents who commented on Education Minister Ong Ye Kung's Facebook posts are adamant that schools should be closed. Their reasons - minimising social contact and the lack of social distancing measures on the journey to school - are understandable during this global health crisis.

However, I strongly believe that schools should not close. In this psychologically and emotionally trying period, we need a sense of normalcy, and schools function as a pillar of support, as pointed out by Mr Ong.

The main reason to keep schools open, however, is the impact it would have on many low-income groups. For workers who earn wages by the hour and who work in shift jobs, the closure of schools would have a tremendously negative impact on their families. Many would struggle to find someone to look after the children at home.

Do we expect such workers to take a day off to stay home to take care of their children when they are already struggling to feed their families? Schools are the safest places for their children to be when there is no one at home, and some even rely on schools to feed their children.

It is easy for more privileged families to demand that schools close, given their access to help and support for their children at home. With greater access to technology, e-learning is not a problem for them.

However, on the other end of the spectrum, there are children who do not have readily available Internet access, and closing schools would set back their education journey. This could perpetuate the social immobility already associated so strongly with lower-income groups, since privileged families can afford tuition and time to assist their children even if schools were to close.

I hope parents understand the rationale for keeping schools open. Even more so, I hope that they are able to see that schools are integral to many low-income families.

Kuik Tze-Yin

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on March 31, 2020, with the headline Forum: Keeping schools open integral to lower-income families. Subscribe