How the pandemic has impacted school students

How the pandemic has impacted school students

A new competition has encouraged students to talk about how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected their education experiences, so that more can be done to make blended learning better in future. David's* day normally begins at 4:30 am, when he gets up from bed to prepare for school. He needs to be out of the house and on the bus a half hour later, so that he turns up to class on time. As the clock moves towards 7 am, the time at which school begins, David is joined on board by a number of his classmates, their bus halting outside their homes for a few minutes at a time, making slow but steady progress towards their destination. Before the pandemic began, this was what David's morning looked like every day. David attends Indian School Sohar, which is located some 250km northwest of the capital, Muscat, but lives in Liwa, a further 30 km away. With the arrival of COVID-19, however, following the decision to shut school campuses and take classes online, as part of the efforts to curb the spread of the disease, David and hundreds of children like him who normally spend hours commuting to and from school