Chinese students skipping classes made to scrub dorms, toilets
Male and female students at a college in central China have to clean up each other’s dormitories in punishment for skipping classes, according to a newspaper report.
Three male undergraduates studying fashion were the first to carry out the punishment at the Wuhan International Culture University in Hubei province, the Chutian Metropolis Daily reported.
Armed with the brooms and mops the students cleaned the dorm on Friday after skipping classes to play computer games or nap earlier last week, the report said.
They spent nearly half an hour scrubbing floors, dusting furniture and cleaning toilets, all of them sweating profusely, according to the article.
“This is really embarrassing. I won’t dare skip classes again,” one of the male students was quoted as saying.
School consellor Cui Bowen told the newspaper that skipping classes had almost become the norm for some students. The new punishment would correct that bad behaviour and improve students’ physical fitness through hard exercise, he said.
“Now, if any male student doesn’t want to go to class, he will be reminded by others of the consequences” he was quoted as saying.
A female student said the punishment would act as an effective deterrent.
“I must not skip classes in the future, otherwise I will end up cleaning up the boys’ filthy bedrooms,” she said.
