The Impact of COVID-19 on WNS

We were affected by the Covid pandemic and the school had closed 

3 times  according to directives from the government. We had since reopened physical school in November 2021 with the appropriate SOPs and fully gone back to normal physical school on 30th May 2022.

During the difficult 2 years of pandemic, our teachers continued to teach. They taught by recording their lessons and posting on Facebook. As there’s limited access to internet in rural areas, our students were unable to learn via real time (example zoom lessons) like students in more developed countries. Instead, they used their parents’ handphone to view recorded lessons. Despite these challenges, with the perseverance of our teachers and cooperation of parents, we had 70% of our students learning online. 

Schools may be closed, but the costs of running education systems continue. Our biggest challenge in sustaining the school during the pandemic was the ability to collect school fees. We have a total of 28 Cambodian teachers and 10 non-teaching staff whose livelihood were directly affected when we were unable to collect school fees. In fact, many private schools in Phnom Penh had to close down for the same reasons. However, we had been very blessed as the shortfall of fees was met by Ms Ting Lung for the duration when we were closed.

Our building project for the Secondary school was stalled for a few months due to the lack of workers. We hoped to complete it soon, as the 107 secondary school students are presently using the primary school facilities. By the new school year of 2022-2023, this number would be doubled, so completing the Secondary school project is of utmost urgency.