Providing educational support for children with severe illnesses: insights from the new Sunshine Hospital School program

The aim of inclusive education is to ensure that students with special needs participate equally in societal life and learning. However, while children with disabilities often receive significant attention, children with severe illnesses are often overlooked in these educational discussions. These children are typically told to “heal first, return to school, and catch up later,” which can be detrimental to their overall upbringing.

In recent years, “hospital schools” have emerged as a novel strategy for tackling the educational challenges faced by long-term hospitalized children. These schools are often run within hospitals, with different operational models across countries. In Western countries, hospital schooling is often integrated into the public education system through district-based models, allowing hospitalized children to continue their education seamlessly. However, given China's vast geography and significant regional disparity, this model is not easily transferable. Instead, through continuous efforts to promote educational equity, China has developed innovative and localized solutions for educating hospitalized children.

For instance, in hospital wards across China, a group of young students can continue their education despite battling severe illnesses like leukemia. Their schooling is not interrupted by their ongoing treatment, thanks to the long-standing efforts in hospital-based education. The New Sunshine Hospital School Program, operated by the Beijing New Sunshine Charity Foundation, is one such program and has been instrumental in addressing the educational needs of hospitalized children. Through localized and adaptive teaching practices, this program not only fills the educational gap for children undergoing long-term medical treatment but also contributes a unique Chinese perspective to this global challenge at the intersection of healthcare and education.

Now, in a study published online in the ECNU Review of Education on 4 February 2025,  researchers deep dive into this unique case of inclusive education of children with severe illnesses. In their study, the researchers elaborate on this China-based perspective on the global public and educational issue, calling for reflection and evaluation of the educational well-being of all children.

Long-term hospitalization often forces children to leave the conventional school system, creating an educational and social disconnect. The question then is – how to ensure continued learning opportunities for children undergoing intensive medical treatment? How can hospitals support children’s right to education?

Over the past decade, the New Sunshine Hospital School Program has developed a flexible curriculum tailored to individual treatment cycles. This includes multidisciplinary mixed-age classrooms, psychological therapy activities, and one-on-one tutoring for older students, ensuring that children not only continue learning but also maintain their social adaptability. This approach serves as a bridge for their return to mainstream education.

Currently, the program operates in 43 hospital classrooms across 20 provinces, providing 175,239 lessons and benefiting over 46,000 hospitalized children with more than 820,796 instances of educational support, making it the largest hospital school system in the world.

The New Sunshine Hospital School Program has established two operational models: teaching as a solo mode, which involves leading by example and “instilling hope in children,” and teaching as an assembly mode, which involves mobilizing social resources and “multi-party responses” through collective effort. Through these context-specific adaptations, the program has developed unique teaching strategies and management models distinct from Western counterparts, contributing valuable insights to this global challenge.

“Ensuring access to compulsory education for children undergoing prolonged medical treatment should be a shared responsibility of both the education and healthcare sectors,” emphasizes Zhengchen Liu, Secretary-General of the Beijing New Sunshine Charity Foundation. Moving forward, policy guidance, NGO involvement, and educational research collaboration will be essential to further enhance educational support for children with severe illnesses.

The researchers of this study believe that it is only through the collaboration of various entities such as social organizations, policymakers, and educational researchers that the needs of children in such special contexts can be addressed. This approach requires further exploration in both practice and theory. Both the hospital school’s top-level curriculum design and the distinct operational models of the New Sunshine Hospital School reflect the innovative efforts made to meet these special educational needs.

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Reference                           

Title of original paper: Educational Support for Hospitalized Children: Insights From the New Sunshine Hospital School Program in China

Journal: ECNU Review of Education

DOI: 10.1177/20965311241313468