Activity at many state schools for the new 2020 academic year term has yet to crank up, after the government order temporarily closing state schools until July 1.
However, for privately owned schools, especially international schools where term breaks are different, both schools and parents are trying to adapt to a new regime, based largely on online learning, to minimise disruption to students' education.
"All privately owned schools, including international schools, have been given a directive to maximise online learning platforms during this time," said Attapon Truektrong, secretary-general of the Office of Private Education Commission (Opec).
Some parents, however, voiced concerns about the impact of online education on small children.
Chutima Jirasubanan, mother of two students who study at an international school in Pattanakorn area of Bangkok, said her daughter in Grade 5 has adjusted well to online classes. She can find her way around applications and programmes as well as participate in online classes. However, her self-discipline level has dropped.
Moreover, Ms Chutima has detected changes in the behaviour of her daughter. As the girl, an athlete, enters a world she rarely visited before, she has started speaking to her grandmother in a sarcastic tone she seemed to be learning from online games.
"During the day, she used to be with friends her age. We have to accept that she still needs her social life but she cannot [physically] meet her friends, so she turns to online gaming which she enjoys with friends," the mother said.
Nevertheless, she is more worried about her son, a K2 student who she believes is too young to learn effectively from online classes.
"I used to set a limit for him using online devices. Nowadays he doesn't understand why he can suddenly use them more. He cannot distinguish play time from learning time and he asked to be able to use them more," she said adding that to keep her son up with the pace of school requirements, she has to allow him to watch YouTube videos so he can complete the tasks the mother is required to submit to teachers.
"There's no teacher in the clips," she said suggesting the school should instead assign offline activities for her son. She understands that schools are currently not able to come up with an emergency plan to cope with such an order. In the meantime, she said, they should take a break and come back with good management plans.
"Children cannot swim in an online [education] world yet, but now they have been forced to jump into the online pool," she said, using a metaphor to highlight the problems of children trying to cope with the impact of having to spend a lot of time online.
Pimjun Senneam, the school licensee of Bloomsbury International School Hatyai, Songkhla, said her school has closely followed the Covid-19 crisis and contemplated contingency plans since early this year.
She agreed that for very small children online classes would not be effective so her school waived fees for the parents of kindergarten students while online classes are provided free as an option. But for the older students, she said, education should not be interrupted with the outbreak, especially when it is uncertain when it will end. Courses, therefore, are provided online with close communication between schools and parents.
Packages of educational materials as well as instructions have been sent to parents and meeting sessions scheduled. Surveys of parents' ideas had been done earlier.
Ms Pimjun said she pays full salaries to the teachers and staff, who have entered a self-quarantine programme ahead of the new semester, which starts on May 4.
"If the teachers are not happy, it can affect students' learning," she said, adding her school will shoulder the burden as best as it can, with 10-20% discount of tuition fees, and the best teaching that the school can offer to its 110 students.
Ms Pimjun said she understands students' parents well because her children also attend an international school in Bangkok.
"Parents are stressed running their businesses while at the same time having to spend time taking care of their kids," she said. "Schools should try their best to relieve the burden."
She said 80% of parents of her children's school are protesting and refusing to pay the tuition fees as the school offered only less than 10% discount.
"The semester is going to open already but the school has sent nothing to us nor clarify what's the plan for our children," she said. She said luckily the parents are united and strong enough to put pressure at the moment.
Among the international schools, Denla British School (DBS) in Nonthaburi, has been credited for offering a 30% fee discount for the third term for as long as distance learning continues.