BANGKOK — Many schools came up with creative solutions to holding lessons during the lingering coronavirus threats as students return to classes for the first time on Wednesday.
Under the pandemic “new normal,” teachers now greet students with a temperature check instead of a waii, everyone is required to wear face masks, and seats are rearranged to ensure physical distancing during the global pandemic.
Teachers at Baan Pa Maud School in Chiang Mai province went as far as making face shields based on a headwear worn by ancient Chinese scholars, or zhuangyuan. The device has a long plastic board to remind students of social distancing and comes with a vocab flashcard on top.
In Korat, Anuban Nakhon Ratchasima School installed an advanced temperature and fever detector. School director Somsak Jaksarn said the technology was brought in to screen the 4,220 students.
Virus control measures were also stringent at Kongthapbok Uppatham Song Lao Sang School inside an army base in Lopburi. Students lined up in front of the school’s gate, waiting to get their temperature checked by a corpsman. The school serves children of the servicemen and communities around the base.
However, many students did not get the chance to return to class at Ban Buketa School in the border province of Narathiwat, where 60 Thai students who resided in Malaysia were unable to cross the border due to the current travel restrictions.
Prior to the pandemic, students usually crossed the border to school and returned to their home in Malaysia. But with the government’s coronavirus measures imposed, they were instructed to attend online classes in the meantime before the situation returned to normal.
In the capital, school opening means more traffic jams for Bangkokians. Cops were deployed in front of the Bangkok Christian School on Sathorn Road to facilitate student drop offs, while well-to-do students were armed with face shields, face masks, and hand sanitizers to combat the virus.
Thailand reported two additional cases of infection on Wednesday, raising the total tally to 3,173. The new patients are Thai returnees from Kuwait and no domestic infections have been reported so far for 37 consecutive days, according to the government’s crisis center.
