With schools in mainland remaining closed during coronavirus outbreak, students from the University of Hong Kong founded a free learning platform online, Pokfulam Online Education. It targets at secondary school students prioritized to Hubei province, which has been hit hardest by the outbreak and has recorded 48,206 coronavirus cases by now.
China’s Ministry of Education issued a statement two weeks ago encouraging schools to use internet platforms as an alternative way of teaching students amid the suspension of the new semester. China’s schools embrace online learning as new virus forces students to stay at home.
“The original idea was to provide voluntary tutoring online to help senior students in the Hubei area. Inspired by the experience of teaching online, I decided to start from providing voluntary tutoring online together with my friends.” said Xiao Chengyuan, the first-year student major in Fintech, who is the initiator of Pokfulam Online Education.
With other 5 initial core members, Chengyuan formed a WeChat public account to promote the platform on January 9th. The platform has posted 13 articles, covering team member introductions, problem-solving skills of different subjects and experience sharing since the WeChat public account established. The total number of readings has exceeded 10,000 times.
After the first WeChat article was sent, the cumulative number of followers on that day doubled. However, core members felt a bit overwhelmed with more and more students asking questions online.
The core members began recruiting the second batch of volunteers. Now, there are 39 volunteers in total with different advantages in Pokfulam Online Education and they are divided into three main groups, which are WeChat official account operating group, tutoring teaching group, and publicity group.
They not only help with problem-solving when receiving questions from students in the WeChat group but introduce learning experiences for high school students to help high school students prepare for upcoming college entrance exams. The tutoring includes all examination subjects with answers provided by the seniors online.
With the support of the University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Online Education has connected with several high schools in Wuhan to provide effective help. Also, it has reached partnerships with Chinese Students and Scholars Association, Undergraduate Department (CSSAUD) to develop promotions.
“As more volunteers join and more students participate in online tutoring, it has been expanded into a nationwide voluntary tutoring platform. In the future, we will continue to support free tutoring online with the original intention.” said Chengyuan.
Pok Fu Lam Online Education is not the only group established in the outbreak. There are many other college students at home and abroad who have set up various online voluntary tutoring groups to make their contribution during the joint fight against the virus.
A group of more than 200 college students from more than 30 prestigious universities including the University of Washington, The University of Melbourne, the Peking University, Renmin University of China, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology also formed Peer to Peer, an online platform providing high school students in mainland with free tutoring.
Also, students from colleges and universities nationwide are providing free tutoring services to children of medical staff who are combating novel coronavirus pneumonia (NCP) to help ease their worries about their youngsters’ studies during this critical period. In Northwestern Polytechnical University, more than 600 students have volunteered to help young students deal with psychological issues online.
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