Online classes are real home work

A battlefield for all

Different from Hubei province, listed as one of the best performing provinces in terms of gaokao (national college entrance exam) scores, some cities and regions which have launched online classes for pupils haven't strictly required them to follow daily courses.

But for parents who simultaneously cope with office tasks and supervise home-schooled children, life is still stressful and nerve-wrecking, like a "battlefield".

Some comic photos and videos made by exhausted parents have been widely viewed online. For instance, a housewife complains she has to play multiple roles now, including "a chef, a nanny, a secretary (for her working-at-home husband), and an assistant teacher as well as a classmate of her child".

Liu Chang, an agent for artists in Beijing, says she has no free time since she has to take care of her daughter Yang Junyi, 8, and her son Yang Junyue, 6, as well as working at home. Her husband, an employee of an airline company, also works at home.

Liu's daughter Junyi is a second-grade pupil at the private Beijing Zhongde School, which hasn't taught new content since the digital start of a new semester but assigned homework, based on new textbooks, every day.

"My husband and I felt a bit anxious the first night when receiving the notice," says Liu. "It's perhaps a bit difficult to count on an 8-yearold child to study attentively and understand new textbooks by herself, so we have to partly take over the teacher's job."

From purchasing a printer and self-learning primary school textbooks to checking homework, Liu says she and her husband are now responsible for making sure that different subjects are studied, which takes several hours each day.