OPINION> Commentary
Burden of schoolbags
(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-09-05 07:34

The news about four-day weeks for French primary and junior secondary schools could leave Chinese pupils, if not their teachers and parents, burning with jealousy.

Ten million French children returned to the classroom on Tuesday to find lessons crammed into a four-day week, thanks to a decree by their President Nicolas Sarkozy. They are to be spared the unpopular tradition of Saturday morning classes.

The revolution, which delighted families but drew criticism from experts in France, would appear to us to be the stuff of fiction. Absolutely no way in this country. Pressure on Chinese students to succeed is intense - and even deadly.

The education departments have adopted a spate of policies asking teachers to reduce homework for students. Yet most students and their parents are frazzled by the amount of homework being piled on in the schools and at home. These school assignments aside, many parents send their children to advanced courses on weekends to try and keep their young minds ahead of their peers.

A fair amount of surveys found that our primary and secondary school pupils were slaves to homework. As a result, they had to burn the midnight oil and could not find time for entertainment.

The longer they stay at school, the more sick they get of study.

This part of education is sad for students, their parents and their teachers. Schooling has become a nail-bitingly stressful ordeal for children and parents alike, one that experts say causes undue emotional distress.

What then is education for?

The finishing line is the college entrance examination. It is believed to be the most pressure-packed examination in the world, given the numbers, the repercussions and stress involved.

The truth is that exam fever in the country is older than gunpowder, and only marginally less volatile.

Students have been cramming since the Sui Dynasty (581-618), when the imperial civil examination was introduced. Chinese lore is filled with stories of aspiring bureaucrats who grew delusional and insane while hitting the books for the grueling tests. The philosophy behind the examination: a good scholar will make a good official.

Today's college entrance examination carries an extended meaning for life. It comes with more stress.

Young people in this country now enjoy greater material comfort and personal freedom than their parents' generation, but they are more emotionally fragile. They feel highly stressed by academic pressures.

The Ministry of Education should chew the cud if it is really serious about saving primary and secondary school students from too much homework and too long study. The orders it has issued time and again fall on deaf ears.

While putting the huge burden of homework on our students' backs, we produce a generation with heavy bags and heavy minds. This goes against the educational goal - "overall development" of students.

(China Daily 09/05/2008 page8)