Opinion divided over homework regulations

Opinion is divided over the Ministry of Education's plans to regulate homework, and the local education commission's plans on the same matter are bound to attract similar polemic.

Two city documents in preparation will define the “bottom line” and provide guidance to schools on “scientific, normative and effective” homework.

Schools will be required to communicate with families and keep children’s homework appropriate. 

The Ministry of Education is to forbid teachers from using apps like WeChat and QQ to assign homework or to ask parents to check their children’s answers.

Some teachers have welcomed the regulation as they are frequently disturbed by parents after work, but the principal of a primary school in Shanghai said apps are just tools and the ban would not fundamentally solve the problem.

She said that even after banning teachers from assigning homework via apps, parents will still ask each other about homework and check answers. Some homework is actually given by parents themselves or by crammers.

"I think parents’ anxiety stems from uncertainty about their children’s future, insufficient social support and out-of-date concepts of success,” she said. “It will take a long time to solve this problem.”