All grade 12 and grade 9 students as well as school faculty in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province, must take nucleic acid testing before the first batch of schools reopen on May 6.

As the epidemic situation has been brought under control in Wuhan, high school seniors will sit for the national entrance examination, or gaokao, on July 7. This year's all-important exam was delayed by a month because of the outbreak.

Grade 12 students, as well as their counterparts in secondary vocational schools and technical training schools, will be the first batch of students to return to school, while grade 9 students will follow, although their return date has yet to be decided.

Those who test positive for COVID-19 will be sent to an isolation facility for medical observation and treatment. To ensure they don't fall behind in their studies, they will receive targeted remote teaching and psychological counseling during isolation, said Xia Chunyin, deputy director of Wuhan municipal education bureau, during a press conference.

There are 36,200 grade 12 students in 94 high schools and 21,600 senior students in 46 secondary vocational schools and technical training schools in Wuhan. A total of 121 schools will lead the phased reopening of academic institutions.

By May 2, a total of 19,178 grade 12 students have been tested for COVID-19. They were all negative.

Hubei Province had no new confirmed cases for 30 consecutive days as of 24:00 on May 3. Grade 12 students in other parts of the province will also go back to school on May 6, but class resumption for students of other grades across the province is still pending.

Since March, most grade 12 students in China have returned to school, including in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong.

(Cover image: A student goes to school. /VCG)