From behind the colourful face shields comes a sound that has sometimes been forgotten in the noise surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic: The joyful crescendo of young children playing and laughing.

“It was incredibly moving to hear the laughter of pupils filling the school playground,” CLP Power’s Chief Corporate Development Office Quince Chong remarks after her visit to Munsang College Kindergarten, one of the 1,000 kindergartens across Hong Kong given face shields by CLP Power prior to class resumption last September, before they were suspended again towards the end of the year. 

The visit came as CLP Power joined a city-wide effort to help Hong Kong rebound from the impact of the virus and to adapt to the reality of living with the pandemic where education for millions of young people has been reshaped by the experience of COVID-19.

A changed learning environment

The lives of children worldwide have been thrown into turmoil by the pandemic. More than one billion children in over 100 countries have had their education disrupted, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation.

An impact on students of all ages

It wasn’t only kindergarten pupils whose education suffered as a result of the virus. Students of all ages felt its impact and teachers struggled too with a survey by the Hong Kong Federation of Education Workers finding some 70% of teachers in kindergartens and primary schools expressing anxiety over a perceived lack of support.

When the outbreak was at its peak and schools across the city were closed, CLP Power offered teachers at 85 primary schools free access to online education materials, covering 10 topics including energy consumption and the effects of our ecological footprint to tie with the schools’ General Studies coursework under CLP Power’s Green Elites Campus Accreditation Programme. 

Audible story books and other audio visual materials in the POWER YOU Kindergarten Education Kit to teach young children about electricity safety and energy conservation were also made accessible through the Power Kid mobile app and Facebook page to help kindergarten teachers and parents carry out online lessons and home learning. 

Bridging the digital divide

As different organisations sought to support school children during class suspensions, the digital divide was a critical hurdle for students from low-income families during the pandemic. A report by the United Nations Children’s Fund suggested at least 31% of students globally were left behind by remote learning because of a lack of computers and internet services.