Parents worry public preschoolers losing out on learning in pandemic
Children walk through the playground of a public kindergarten in Songpa District, Seoul, in this May 27, 2020 photo. Korea Times photo by Hong In-kiBy Bahk Eun-jiAs the government raised the social distancing scheme to its highest level, schools and kindergartens in the greater Seoul area switched to full-time remote classes last week. While children at public and private kindergartens, which are supervised by the Ministry of Education, have to receive online-only education without interaction with teachers and friends, those attending so-called “English kindergartens” still have offline classes as they are categorized as private academies, known in Korean as “hagwon.”As this situation has been recurring since last year, there are concerns that negative effects from lack of social interaction development and learning gaps may occur among those children affected from the early childhood stage.A 43-year-old mother in northern Seoul's Nowon District, who wished to be identified only by her surname Kim, said she decided to send her seven-year-old daughter to a pri
