Parents quarrel

To celebrate Spring Festival, most migrant workers returned to their families and became stranded in their hometown due to the pandemic.

Ma Shuangwei, head of Fanwan Primary School in Juwan, said: "As students have not been at school, I am worried whether parents are supervising their children's studies at home."

Compared with their city counterparts, rural parents are at a disadvantage when it comes to finances, ability and time to guide their children in remote learning.

Two young parents in Juwan quarreled with each other as both were unwilling to lend their child their mobile phone for online classes, as they wanted to play with the devices.

Liu Changbin, head of the town's education authority, said, "It's difficult for many to imagine that such a thing can happen nowadays, but it's a true grassroots story."

When classes restart at schools, Juwan intends to use weekends to allow pupils who have fallen behind in their studies to catch up.

Given the disparity between rural and urban areas, students from the countryside may not perform as well as they should do if they cannot attend physical classes.

"This gap certainly exists," Liu said. "The point is not to make it too huge."

Online education has meant that Shu has had to slow the pace of his lessons to allow his students sufficient time to review them every other day.

He hopes the outbreak will end soon, as he fears his 27 pupils are falling behind due to the disruption. In a unified final test last semester, his class ranked second in the town for math, and he is eyeing first place.

"They have a strong desire for knowledge," Shu said.