Online classes are real home work

It's "going to school" but not as we know it. Every morning when Zhu Jinhao, 8, turns on the TV set in Shiyan, Hubei province, his parents and grandparents quickly walk into their bedrooms and try to be as quiet as possible.

The adults are not spoiling the child by giving him unfettered access to TV. Instead, it's time for the second-grade pupil to digitally "attend class". This routine is part of unprecedented lifestyle change, being replicated in households all over China, due to the novel coronavirus outbreak.

Usually, the winter break ends in mid-February, followed by a new semester and a flood of students back to schools.

But with the epidemic yet to be completely contained, Hubei province, the most seriously affected region in China with its capital city Wuhan at the epicenter of the outbreak, has launched distance education for primary and middle school students as a substitute for on-site learning, which began on Feb 10.

A digital education program provided by the Hubei Provincial Department of Education, which is available on the provincial television channels, as well as online platforms, delivers a comprehensive array of classes which mostly begin at 9 am and conclude around 3:30 pm or later, depending on the respective grades, according to local media outlets.

Aside from Hubei province, most municipalities, provinces and autonomous regions in China have provided similar digital classes for students at home, exemplified by Beijing from Feb 17 and Shanghai since March 2.

For most parents, online classes are an effective aid to help children establish a good daily routine, but they are also worrying that watching digital screens for a long time may harm their eyesight.

As a compromise, a number of parents in urban areas have tried their best to improve the e-learning environment, in some cases by installing projectors or using TV sets which have bigger screens than iPads and smartphones.