In August 2018, the Ministry of Education said first and second graders should not be assigned written homework. The motivation at the time was to prevent children from developing eyesight problems. By 2018, 36% of all primary schoolers in China were nearsighted, while the proportion grew to 71.6% and 81%, respectively, for middle and high schoolers.
The amount of time primary and middle school students in China spent on homework fell from 3.03 hours a day in 2016 to 2.87 hours in 2017, but it is still far higher than in other countries, according to a research report.
homework in chinese schools
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Experts and parents have called for reasonable amounts of homework and an evaluation system for students based on more than just examinations, while teachers advise parents not to focus on competition.
The report by afanti100.com, a Chinese online education service provider, is based on a survey of 446,836 students in 31 provincial areas, with 56.7 percent from primary schools, 38.6 percent from middle schools, and 8.7 percent from high schools.
The research indicated that it took primary and middle school students less time to finish their homework in 2017 than in 2016. The average time per day decreased to 2.87 hours2.64 hours for primary school students and 2.94 hours for high school students.
At the end of 2017, the Ministry of Education introduced a standard for managing schools under the compulsory education period. It demanded that families and schools should cooperate to guarantee 10 hours of sleep for primary students and nine hours of sleep for middle school students.
In 2013, the Ministry of Education also issued a regulation on primary school pupils' homework, saying that there should be no written homework for Grade 1 and 2 students, and less than an hour of written homework for other grades. But the ministry is yet to introduce any rules on homework for middle school students.
Liu Xuchen, 13, is studying at Hefei Shouchun Middle School, Anhui province, and will take the high school entrance examination this summer. Liu said most of her classmates spend nearly four hours on homework every day.
According to the report, 85 percent of students experience negative emotions when doing their homework, including getting upset and losing their temper. And 76 percent of parents argue with their children when helping them with their homework.
Yuan Hairong is a teacher with almost 20 years of experience at the Experimental High School Attached to Beijing Normal University."Most of our students who will take the high school entrance exam this year spend two and a half hours at most on homework every day," he said.
"But many parents send their children to tutorial classes for those five subjects, which also occupies a lot of time," Yuan added. "Many parents don't want to see their children left behind, so they arrange extra classes and homework."
Chu Zhaohui, a researcher at the National Institute of Education Sciences, said it's the single evaluation system for students that leads to the homework burden. "The schools only assess students' development using scores and ranks.
Zhang Haoqiang, principal of the Hangzhou Shengli Experimental School in Zhejiang province, said: "We should focus on reducing redundant homework. After all, homework is a key method to consolidate knowledge.
In the hopes of easing pressures on China's students, the country' education officials are considering a ban on written homework. Here, students walk to school in Beijing in June. Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images hide caption
Chinese officials hope to rein in teachers who assign too much homework, as the country's Ministry of Education considers new rules that ban schools from requiring students to complete written tasks at home. Citing undue stress on students, the ministry would also limit the number of exams students take.
The goal of relieving pressure on students was also cited in July, when China's Education agency issued a ban on written homework for first and second graders during the summer vacation. Readers may recall that last autumn, French President Francois Hollande declared his wish to ban homework, as well.
Chinese officials presented a draft version of a long-term education reform plan for public comment last week. The plan calls for cutting homework, replacing it with visits to museums and libraries, and boosting "students' hands-on capabilities through handicrafts or farm work," the Xinhua state news agency reports.
The push to cut homework has also met with resistance among educators, who say it would undermine their efforts to have students retain what they learn. And teachers tell SINA that for issues like literacy, homework is crucial. Others say homework isn't the real problem.
"If homework or academic assignments are stopped, schools and parents will worry about the possible decline in enrollment rates, which remains the main assessment of education quality," elementary education director Wang Ming, of the National Education Development Research Center, tells China Daily.
For primary school students, their homework time should not exceed 9:00 pm, and for junior high school pupils, the homework time limit is set at 10:00 pm. If there is any remaining homework left by that time, students can leave it as it is.
ECNS.cn also reports that primary school teachers should not assign homework to students below the second grade, and not to assign any homework to students of higher grades requiring more than an hour to finish.
What do you do when you come home from school? You probably have time for some video games, maybe a run around outside, and then do a little bit of homework. When Chinese kids come home from school every day there is no time to play because they have a lot of homework and study to do. Even on the weekend and in school holidays they go to extra classes and schools to try and do the best they can possibly do.
The schools in the city are really big, with classrooms upstairs and downstairs. Often the classes are very big too, with about fifty children in each class. With so many children in the room the desks have to be in neat rows, rather than in groups like you might have in your classroom. Does your classroom have desks in groups, and do you get to do interesting activities with your friends? Most lessons for Chinese kids are about learning things off by heart, repeating things and doing drills.
Country kids still need to go to school, and their families really want them to do well too. In some places there are not always enough qualified teachers available, so they might have school only in the morning or only in the afternoon. That way the teacher can go to two different schools in one day. The classes are sometimes really big, maybe a hundred kids in one class.
Foreign children in Chinese schools are not such a foreign sight these days, but they and their family get a totally different experience than what they'd get in their home country or an international school.
I'm certain that these women are exceptions and that there are many caring teachers in Chinese schools, but the understanding that I have is that teachers are uber-strict and are to be respected and feared.
6. Schools have unpredictable schedules. Coming from a country where schools put out tentative schedules two to three years in advance, and generally stick to them, it's still hard for me to get used to the unpredictable schedules that schools in China operate on.
There are no international schools in my area (or more than a handful of foreigners for that matter), and my husband is not convinced that home education is an acceptable alternative to traditional school (even though I have a degree in elementary education).
In general, weekday afterschool EBRBs were associated more closely with obesity status as shown in Table 4. Weekday homework, screen viewing and outdoor activities were positively associated with obesity status, while weekend day remedial academic work and weekday sleep were inversely associated (p
Along with barring app-based homework assignments, the Zhejiang regulation would limit the use of electronic devices to 30 percent of total teaching time and encourage the issuing of paper homework to be completed by hand.
The regulation would bar primary and middle school students from bringing electronic devices into classrooms without permission, restrict amounts of homework assigned and increase the time for breaks, sports and extra-curricular activities.
It says no written homework at all should be assigned to 1st and 2nd graders.Already, national education authorities have issued a proposal to prevent teachers from using the popular WeChat or QQ messaging apps for assigning homework and banned them from asking parents to mark their children's work. The education ministry also called for only paper homework assignments for primary and middle school students "in principle."
"Interestingly, he wrote a doggerel at the end of the scroll: Today's homework is finished. Teacher, please don't delay the class and let us go home early. It has made the scroll much more lively," said Dilinur Maiming, a docent at Turpan Museum.
Ye Ting was thrilled when she learnt that her daughter's school would limit the amount of homework from the start of the spring semester so that students can finish it at school, but her excitement did not last long.
"The written homework can be finished at school, but there is still reading, listening and dictation practice, as well as a review of what she has learned at school and a preview of the next day's learning, which all require parents' participation and need to be finished at home."
As a first-grader in Beijing's Xicheng district, although the school day ends at 3 pm, her daughter goes to bed at around 10 pm on school days, as she is busy with the "spoken homework" and cram courses, Ye said.
Minister of Education Chen Baosheng said one of the ministry's main tasks this year is to limit the amount of homework for primary and secondary school students and ensure they can enjoy enough sleep for their healthy development. 2ff7e9595c
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