Primary students do homework at an after-school care center in Yuping Dong autonomous county in Southwest China's Guizhou province, Feb 27, 2019.Photo:Xinhua

 
One more city in China recently launched a pilot of the "circuit breaker mechanism" for homework, which allows students to stop working even if their homework is unfinished, with parental approval and the understanding of teachers, local authorities said.

Bengbu, in East China's Anhui Province, has proposed the mechanism allowing primary school students to stop homework at 9 pm and junior high school students at 9:30 pm if unfinished, provided their parents sign off. Teachers are expected to support the policy, according to the city's education bureau.

The goal is to ensure sufficient sleep for students through the improvement of mechanisms, and to encourage teachers to assign homework more precisely, according to the bureau.

This is not the first attempt China cities have implemented such a mechanism. Similar initiatives have been rolled out in other regions, with measures aimed at improving students' overall well-being and health.

A middle school in Hefei, Anhui Province, introduced a similar "homework circuit breaker" on March 10 allowing parents to sign off on unfinished homework after 10 pm so students can prioritize rest. 

The school clarified to parents that students are expected to make every effort to complete their homework, but if the workload is too heavy or too difficult to finish on time, parents can activate such "circuit breaker mechanism."

In February, the education bureau of Wuping in Longyan city, East China's Fujian Province, announced that the "homework circuit breaker" system would be implemented for primary school students across the county. If students have not finished their homework by 9:30 pm, they are required to stop working and go to bed promptly to ensure adequate sleep, according to The Paper.

In the letter to parents, the bureau stated that if a child cannot complete their homework, they can explain the situation to the teacher when submitting it the next day. The unfinished portion does not need to be redone, and teachers will adjust accordingly using differentiated instruction to support student learning.

As early as in 2023, other schools in regions such as Suzhou in East China's Jiangsu Province and Ningbo in East China's Zhejiang Province have also implemented similar mechanisms with the aim to improve students' sleep time.

A 2024 white paper published by the China Sleep Research Society reveals that overall sleep quality is poor among respondents, including students, office workers, and retirees, with low sleep scores. Young people, especially those born after 2000, are the main group staying up late, with an average bedtime of 12:33 am. Students, on average, sleep less than 8 hours per night. 

In late October last year, the Ministry of Education, along with the National Health Commission and the National Disease Control and Prevention Administration, issued a notice stressing the importance of myopia prevention and recommended that primary school students get at least 10 hours of sleep per day.

Global Times