Hong Kong education chief calls for less homework during Lunar New Year
Homework is a contentious issue in the city where parents have complained about their children being sent home with more than two hours of assignments each day
Schools should ease the burden of homework for students over Lunar New Year, the education minister said on Monday, as he vowed his bureau would make a decision on a controversial competency assessment by next month.
Speaking to reporters ahead of the festive season, the Secretary for Education Kevin Yeung Yun-hung urged school operators to lessen homework for pupils to free up time for traditional activities such as visiting relatives, which he said were also important for a child’s development.
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“One operator I spoke to said it had asked its schools to not give out any homework during this period,” he said.
Yeung also said his bureau had been discussing with schools ways to improve the city’s homework policies, with a focus on making assignments more diverse and interesting.
With an increasingly competitiveeducation system, homework is a contentious issue in Hong Kong, with some parents and children complaining of spending more than 2½ hours on homework each day.
Reverend Peter Koon Ho-ming, provincial secretary general of the Sheng Kung Hui, the Anglican Church in Hong Kong and Macau, said the church had advised its schools to reduce homework for the Lunar New Year period, and to avoid assignments that are based on drilling – or a rote learning approach that relies heavily on memorisation.