The Union’s Community Outreach sent out surveys to students from 7 Top International Schools in Thailand – Ruamrudee International School (RIS), Bangkok Patana School (BPS), International Community School (ICS), NIST, St. Andrews (STA), Shrewsbury (SHB), and Triamudom – asking about students’ feelings towards school reopening in the first semester.
A total of 22 responses were received. All responses were anonymous. You can view the google form at this link:
https://forms.gle/15D31eGRuxUrQk5z6
The survey results can be viewed here:
Going Back to School (Responses)
Surveyed Questions:
What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages of being back on campus?
How has being online impacted your academics? How about test-taking?
What Covid vaccine did you get? Why did you choose this specific vaccine (Pfizer, Sinopharm/vac, AstraZeneca, Moderna)? Do you have any concerns towards vaccines?
As a student who has to follow all rules, how do you feel about the Covid regulations placed at your school?
What changes were made at your school upon reopening? What improvements do you hope to see regarding these changes?
This question is for those who chose NOT to go back to school and stay online for the semester. Why did you make the decision to stay online?
With changes already in place in school, do you feel safe going back to school?
|
|
| |
Advantages | Disadvantages |
Interaction with teachers, more engagement, better learning The advantages of being back at school are the opportunity to interact with friends and teachers. One of the primary advantages of being back on campus is the ability to have more interactive learning. As a student, I find it a lot easier to ask questions in class and engage with the material studied in person. We would not have to go through any technical difficulties anymore which may come in between our learning. Advantages include better focus during class time and students will be more productive. Easier to communicate, face-to-face interaction It’s easier to focus while you’re in a classroom with your friends and teacher. Seeing and talking to ppl and teachers is a lot easier now. As a senior I had a lot of deadlines that needed to be completed and feedback from teachers is always easier to receive when you can talk to them whenever. it’s also helpful for academics cause students can bounce ideas off of each other and if we need help, asking for it it’s much easier I’m much more productive, I’m more active, it’s easier to learn, it’s easier to interact with teachers and get help if needed, I’m much happier, I get less distracted Being able to do practical work With academics, I personally absorb a lot more when I’m physically in a lecture (no clue why haha), so I feel super fortunate to be back in! | Unsafe due to Covid The disadvantages are having to be in large groups with people, which is not supposedly very safe. A disadvantage would be a decrease in safety in comparison to online school. The disadvantage might be the risk of getting covid-19 infected but I don’t really care though. |
Socialization Another advantage would obviously be being able to socialize with a wide variety of people in both an academic and non-academic setting. The advantages of being back on campus would be being able to see friends as well as our teachers. You meet your friends. More fun. The perks are probably the teaching efficiency and social relationships for the students to really get the highschool experience Of course I love that I can feel more part of a community, especially since I get to spend more time in-person with close friends. But also, I’ve been able to meet a lot more people that I never would’ve gotten the privilege to get close to if we remained online. | Inconveniences such as waking up early (lack of sleep) and transportation time The disadvantages of being back on campus would be not being able to wake up late and also the transportation time taking away a big chunk of our day. A disadvantage is students will get less sleep due to classes starting earlier than online school. Very tiring (have to wake up very early) Covid restrictions can make it hard to interact with friends, it can be stressful at times Time lost during transportation between home and school I guess the only real big thing for me is increased commute times- I live relatively far from school so it feels a bit wasted sometimes to travel so long there and back, especially if I have a busy day. |
More movement In addition, I don’t have to suffer through grueling hours of sitting in a stationary position at my desk, which is nice You can finally play sports. | School can be more challenging in person More tiring but that’s more to do with deadlines than of COVID. More homework |
| |
Hard to concentrate and absorb information in class | Test taking and all have been okay during online, however it gets hard at times to fully concentrate in class and give it your all. Being online has been difficult in terms of academics, as it is much harder to process any information given and ask teachers questions. Online has made it harder to understand the content especially with harder classes. Test-taking had not been very efficient especially for my STEM classes as it relied on graphs and sometimes the graphs had not been very clear. It’s a lack of concentration when you study online. When online, I got distracted really easily and I definitely did a lot less work than I get done now. It was hard to participate during in-class discussions, and school was not very enjoyable. I always felt super tired from being on screen in my room every day, so that definitely impacted me as well. There hasn’t been much of an impact on the academic side of things but it’s just that I’ve not been able to focus for long periods of time Overall, my grades haven’t been slipping, but I’ve definitely felt as though I had to dedicate more time in reviewing and revising because online school made it really difficult to focus. |
More time to do things | In the positive aspect, I was able to spend a lot more time focusing on my academics as I did not have any extracurricular activities to attend such as sports. I think it made me focus on more non academic things since i have more free time |
Connectivity issues | Test taking has generally been just as bad as in person, aside from times when there are connectivity issues. However, the negative aspect would be that sometimes the teacher’s internet or our own internet had not been working and we would have missed out on some of the information being said |
Less valuable knowledge, cheating can be easy and the feeling of taking a test in real life is lost | It makes me less confident about taking a test because I forgot the feeling of taking an in person test. The test went well since I cheated, therefore I don’t know my actual academic skills. My academics are fine but we did extremely few tests during online so my ability to recall information in a test condition has definitely worsened. My knowledge felt much more shallow online – in a way it felt more like glorified homework than actual learning if that makes sense. |
|
School provided it, other institute provided it pfizer, since the school provided it I chose this specific vaccine as it was provided by my school Majority of the students in my school got Pfizer, were vaccinated at a mall. I got the Pfizer vaccine because my dad works for the US embassy, and they provided it to us. |
Only one available I got my first shot overseas, because it was the only one available in that region that was accessible to minors. Therefore, it was a natural continuation to get a second pfizer shot back in bangkok. pfizer – school gave it to us, I’m also under 18 which means a lot of vaccines weren’t available for me |
Safest option, or most effective If I have to travel somewhere during the break, pfizer would be the safest option (most countries allow pfizer). It was told to be the most effective. I felt Pfizer was the most tested and researched vaccine, with incredible support and sponsorships from expert institutions or research facilities. |
Possible long term effects might be there, concerns towards vaccines I think naturally we all worry about possible long term side effects vaccines might have, but as long as it provides a degree of immunity to me now, any possible side effects are problems for me in the future. The only concerns I have towards vaccines is surrounding the efficacy of Sinovac and Sputnik, as Sinovac is what many tThai citizens have gotten. I worry that the city will shut down again if people start interacting again and they don’t have one of the better vaccines. |
No concerns towards vaccines As of now, I have no concerns towards vaccines. I don’t have any concerns. pfizer, at medpark, as an aspiring med student yes, i have done rigorous research of all the vaccines, and this one seems good |
Parents choice sinopharm; i didn’t pick, my parents did. Pfizer cuz my mom made me? |
|
Hard to follow but understandable It is definitely hard to follow, although it is important for us, because of the current situation in Thailand. They’re not as strict as I expected. Often after school there’s been crowds of students not socially distanced and the teachers haven’t really addressed this (not that I know of). However, I do believe that my school is trying their best to regulate what they can in order to prevent the spread of the virus. They’re tedious at times but I understand the necessity and life would just be a lot easier if everyone adhered to them. |
School is not doing a good job The atk tests are a pretty standard safety measure, although I think my school forgot to factor in the level of accessibility of these tests to certain people. I wouldn’t go to say my school is brilliant at maintaining covid safety or anything, but everything is pretty standard and as long as that keeps us semi-safe, who am I to complain? I feel our school is doing quite well with regulations, except for one small thing. We have labeled stairwells in school specifically for going up and down. I can’t seem to understand how this helps us, as most if not all of us believe this funnels a lot of people into an extremely restricted space. |
Safety first There are many Covid regulations placed at my school and these regulations would only wish towards our own safety. I believe the regulations placed will in fact keep us very safe. I feel like the covid regulations are there to keep everyone safe Fine by me, just let me go to school. For my school I think the rules are okay and there are not an overwhelming amount. i think if people are really concerned about covid, the regulations are definitely not enough (lunchtime). |
No need for regulations, regulations are not helpful For me we shouldn’t be afraid of being infected if all students, teachers and their family have been vaccinated so yes my opinion is those regulations shouldn’t be there. They’re really frustrating, and it feels unnecessary at times as we’re all vaccinated and most of us are vaccinated with Pfizer. It is pretty annoying and unnecessary. really bad, they focus on the wrong things. they are like oh be socially distanced, but at the end of school, everyone crowds around the exits, also mask wearing is very bad |
|
Changes in regards to covid restrictions The changes that were made at my school reopening would be the way the classes are separated as well as the tables in the canteen. The desks at each classroom would be further away from each other because of social distancing. The tables in the canteen also limit to only two people sitting at each table and we will also be provided with a packed lunch. As of now, I don’t see why there would be any improvements needed regarding these changes. Packed food and ATK testing twice a week. I hope they will continue to be strict with these regulations. Social distancing in the canteen, which will significantly lower the capacity of the seats— I don’t know how this will work out considering the massive number of students. much stricter physical distancing and mask wearing is compulsory. sanitizing our tables after each lesson, avoiding group work, atk tests twice a week. hopefully there won’t be any covid cases and we don’t go back to online school again more available seats for lunchtime- good for social distancing but students still talk to each other with their masks off so it is not that helpful. We can’t sit next to each other in class, we always have to be socially distanced, there are plastic barriers on the lunch tables, we can’t leave campus for lunch or at any other time during the middle of the day, we have to submit a covid test twice a week, no one besides Year 12 and 13s are able to order lunch from the cafeteria (everyone else pre-orders and the options are super limited) packed lunches instead of scooping it from trays, but the lunches are really bad. seat restrictions for lunch and seating plans for lessons. also a tracker of who you eat with , but people rarely do that Restrictions on number of people eating together, weekly and random atk testing, home-packed lunches |
Changes hoped to be made My only expectation is to go to school, but it would be nice if my school doesn’t spend money on stupid stuffs like temperature-checking tunnels. I want those school activities/festivals to be back. |
