Not long ago, someone made a petition on the government’s Public Policy Network Participation Platform asking that the start and end hours of junior and senior-high schools be changed to 9:30am and 5pm.
The petitioner said that the new schedule would shorten the long school day and keep students from dozing off in class, hampering their learning.
Within just a few days of the posting, the number of cosigners reached above the threshold for a motion, but of course the government is unlikely to pass it.
Three years ago, someone proposed that Taiwan follow the US and Europe by shortening the school day to six hours, from 9am to 3pm.
The Ministry of Education said: “If school hours were reduced, the total number of class hours would be insufficient, and there would be less time for student activities during breaks.”
The new motion proposes a school day of 9:30am to 5pm, for a total of 7.5 hours. Removing the self study session before the first class and the elective eighth class — the “tutoring course,” which high schools cannot force students to take — would still leave enough class hours to meet the new curriculum guidelines.
Schools simply need to fine tune their daily schedules.
Revising the hours would solve the problem of tests being scheduled on Monday to Friday mornings during the self study sessions — despite the ministry telling schools not to do it — and the problem of students being unfairly labeled by teachers when they skip the eighth class — despite the ministry telling schools not to force them to take the tutoring course.
Unfortunately, the person who proposed the motion failed to strengthen their argument with these two points. Instead, they merely said that students might feel drowsier going to school earlier — probably an insufficiently strong rationale for changing the current hours.
Students mainly feel drowsy in the morning because they went to bed late the night before. This could result from staying up too late to study, because there is too much homework. If that is the case, the issue to be discussed is whether schools are giving students too much homework or too many tests, rather than changing the school hours.
If students are tired because they needed to attend cram school after regular school hours, the issue to be discussed is why parents are sending their children to cram school every day, adding to their exhaustion after having spent nine hours at regular school.
If students are exhausted because of excessive cellphone use, resulting in poor time management and lack of sleep, then they should reflect on their own behavior rather than discuss changing the school hours.
Considering things from the students’ perspective, many student are undeniably exhausted because of their busy schedules on and off campus — the multitude of tests, the volume of homework and the many hurdles of college admission.
Although the government is unlikely to pass the motion to change the school day to 9:30am to 5pm, student exhaustion caused by long school hours is an undeniable fact. Perhaps exhaustion due to overwork is what the government should tackle first.
Bob Chiu is a junior-high school teacher.
Translated by Eddy Chang
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