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Heavy burden on students

(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-02-12 07:43

It's unfair to punish teachers who assign too much homework to their students for they are forced to do so under the current education system, says an article in Modern Express. The following is an excerpt:

Shanghai education authorities have recently ruled that teachers who can't help students reduce their study loads will be laid off.

It's common knowledge that students are burdened with heavy schoolwork. This is because our education system ignores all-around development and is only test-oriented.

Teachers should obviously not be held accountable for the excessively heavy burden on students. They just do what they are required to do under the current education system. They would volunteer to reduce schoolwork pressure on students if the rate of admission into higher schools can be scrapped, or at least the rate can be delinked from their performance and to the rankings of schools where they work.

In fact, people have never ceased efforts to reduce students' workloads in past decades, but it has been in vain since the education system has seen no fundamental changes. If we don't change the entrance examination system and the related evaluation standards of students, these efforts are doomed to fail.

So, the measures taken by Shanghai education authorities are too superficial. The reform should start with the education system, the entrance examination, and the way of evaluating our students.

(China Daily 02/12/2009 page8)