Each time he opened the camera, Chen Yan only saw his 12-year-old son dozing off, while the computer screen still broadcast the teacher's online lecture.

Chen Yan, an office worker in Shaoguan City, Guangdong Province, China, had to install surveillance cameras to monitor his son's study at home, when the provincial school was closed to prevent Covid- 19 spread. But every time the camera is turned on, this mother wants to "catch fire", when her son does everything at home, except for lectures.

"I couldn't even hear a full sentence from the teacher's lecture, because the Internet was so slow," Chen explained when he saw his son dozing off in front of a computer screen. "I guess the teacher can't tell if my children listen to lectures during class or not."

Like Chen, millions of Japanese, mainland Chinese and Hong Kong parents are struggling with the problem of leaving school when schools are closed until at least April to prevent Covid-19.

Many schools in Hong Kong are facing pressure to return the tuition when students have to stay home from school. All schools in this special district started to close at the end of January and are expected to only pick up students to class on April 20.

"My child is screaming at home," insurance agent Jade Yang in Hong Kong said when she heard the district authorities decided to close the school until at least April 20. "A few more weeks and it will go crazy."

Jackie Yang, a Hong Kong-based risk control specialist, is also in the mood, having to tutor his children in the middle of work. "The mailbox is flooded, the to-do list is getting longer and longer, while the kids don't leave me alone," Yang said.

"I'm bored up to my neck," she expressed. "Imagine, every minute someone screams 'Mom, I don't know how to log on to the computer', 'Mom, print this out for me'". According to the Hong Kong government's notice, students in this country will miss at least 13 weeks of study to stop Covid-19.

On January 27, the Japanese government issued a similar notice, requiring all schools to be closed for two weeks to control the outbreak. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the two weeks were an important time to control the spread of nCoV and "prevent the risk of students and teachers from becoming infected when they congregate in school for hours every day". However, some schools may choose to stay active or defer closing time.

On social media, many parents criticized the decision, saying they had to leave work to look after their children. However, the Japanese government said it would discuss with the companies to resolve the issue.

"We will try to persuade state agencies and private businesses to create conditions for parents to stay home," Japanese Cabinet Chief Secretary Yoshihide Suga said at a press conference on February 28.

Many agencies and businesses in both Hong Kong and Japan allow employees to work from home. But parents find it difficult to do both the work of the agency, the company, and the tutoring of children online.

Singapore and South Korea have not asked to close schools, but conduct health checks, body temperature measurements for students and teachers, and require parents to regularly monitor the situation of their children at home.

A mother with two daughters, 3 and 7 years old, decided to extend her visit to Japan and teach her children at home, because the school in Hong Kong, where her family lives, is closed because of the epidemic. Covid-19. However, her husband remained in Hong Kong because he did not want to go to Japan and had to work remotely.

"My two children have been away from my father for the past month and a half," she said.

But now, the Japanese school also announced its closure because of nCoV, so she will be returning to Hong Kong soon. "It was an unexpected decision from the Japanese government. We decided to return to Hong Kong next week. Because the school is closed, I have no reason to stay while living away from my husband." she said last weekend.

However, she is worried that her parents and children are likely to be isolated for 14 days when returning to Hong Kong at this time. In addition, finance is also a problem for her because the first daughter's international school and the youngest daughter's kindergarten all refuse to return the tuition, although she has received 25% of the shuttle service fee. I go to school.

"We have to pay a lot for extracurricular activities. Most of these activities are compensated, but we can hardly get a refund. It makes me feel angry," she said. .

Mathew Mohrbach, a teacher at the American International School in Hong Kong, supports the notion of not returning tuition because of "non-stop learning" even when schools are closed.

"We haven't missed a lesson yet, and teachers are teaching enough lessons through video sharing platforms that incorporate the Google Classroom service. We still hold great teacher meetings. meet and organize extra-curricular classes for students in need, "Mohrbach said.

At Mohrbach's school, tuition for grades one through four is HK $ 168,000 (about US $ 21,500) and increases gradually through the following blocks. Meanwhile, British International School Kellett has a primary school fee of 22,000 USD and increased to more than 28,000 USD for high school.

The Hong Kong government said on Feb. 26 that each citizen would receive nearly $ 1,300 in support for the time authorities took measures to prevent the Covid-19 epidemic.

Public and private schools in Hong Kong are adopting e-learning and e-mail learning, according to Ruth Benny, who runs an educational consulting firm in Hong Kong. But worried that the curriculum would be disrupted, Benny took her senior-year daughter to London, England to prepare for the college entrance exams, which were only scheduled at fixed times of the year.

"It is not a rushed action because this school year is being seriously disrupted," she said.

Parents with no conditions for children to study abroad such time school closed because nCoV continues to be a major challenge. "When she was in school, I was a teacher of it," Ivan Au, a 48 year-old insurance agent in Hong Kong, talks about the coaching job at 5 years old daughter. "When it playing, I have to play with it. When it sleeps, I have to prepare school supplies for the next day. I had no time to rest yet."