Hong Kong’s Education Bureau announced that all schools will continue to be suspended on Monday out of safety concerns, as protesters and police clashed on Sunday outside Polytechnic University.

Schools were officially closed on November 14 and 15 as transport chaos gripped the city, although many opted to shut earlier last week, the South China Morning Post reported.

With protesters vowing to make weekday chaos the “new normal”, the Bureau has opted to keep kindergartens, primary schools, secondary and special schools closed for at least one more day.

In a statement on Sunday, it said that schools should prepare for classes to resume, but students should stay at home and not take part in any illegal activities.

“There are still uncertainties despite the recovery of roads and public transportation services,” the Bureau said.

The announcement came as multiple rounds of tear gas were fired in the early hours of Sunday as dozens of Hong Kong protesters threw bricks at people, including personnel from China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA), trying to clear barricades from the roads.

On Saturday, Hong Kong witnessed a relatively calm as a key highway fully reopened after being blocked by protesters the night before.

Train services were also suspended between Hung Hom and Mong Kok East after a petrol bomb was thrown onto the track on Saturday morning, but services later resumed.

Earlier on Thursday, the city’s Justice Minister Teresa Cheng on Thursday was hurt when she fell after being surrounded by demonstrators, in what was the first physical confrontation between a cabinet official and anti-government protesters.

The University of Hong Kong’s main campus, which had become a base for protesters this week, was quiet on Saturday morning, with hubs like the main library closed and few students to be seen.

On Sunday, a 21-year-old who was shot by a policeman and a 57-year-old man who was set on fire after an argument with protesters remained hospitalized in “critical condition”.

Hong Kong has been upended by five months of huge and increasingly violent rallies, but Beijing has refused to give in to most of the movement’s demands.

Tensions have soared in recent days following the death on Friday of a 22-year-old student Alex Chow, who succumbed to serious injuries sustained from a fall in the vicinity of a violent clash the weekend before.

Earlier this week, hundreds of protesters occupied several universities in Hong Kong, turning them into fortified bases.

The social unrest in Hong Kong has entered its sixth month and shows no signs of stopping.

The controversial China extradition bill was withdrawn in early September but the movement has morphed into a wider campaign for greater democracy and against alleged police brutality.

(With inputs from agency)