PETALING JAYA: Students are looking forward to face-to-face lessons with schools reopening soon, according to a study. This comes as students in Malaysia have endured nearly 35 weeks of school closure – the longest in the world – throughout the pandemic, according to the Unesco Institute for Statistics’ “Global Monitoring of School Closures Caused by the Covid-19 Pandemic” data. Prof Dr M. Niaz Asadullah from UM’s Faculty of Economics and Administration said 75.9% of students he surveyed say they prefer to return to school physically. His study will be presented in a conference jointly organised by the Asian Development Bank, Singapore’s ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute and National University of SingaporeIt surveyed over 6,800 bumiputra secondary school students nationwide to assess “learning continuity” during the ongoing school closures. Schools in Phase Three states could open in full, but schools in Phase One states would remain closed.
