The school days usually last a whole day (from around 8:00 until 17:00) with 45-minutes-long classes, with a little more flexible schedules in more rural areas. In China's metropolises, where lunch breaks are shorter, kids might finish school around 15:00 as well.
The Chinese educational structure provides for six years of primary school, three years each of lower secondary school and upper secondary school, and four years in the standard university curriculum. All urban schools are financed by the state, while rural schools depend more heavily on their own financial resources.
Its academic results are first-rate as measured by the Program for International Student Assessment (Pisa), which administers standardized tests worldwide every three years. China topped the rest of the world in reading, math and science in the latest test, in 2018.
Chinese education focuses on the knowledge of accumulation, on how students manage and use the knowledge they learned in school, and on understandings of knowledge systems and structures. Americans are interested in how students use their knowledge in society.
Six classes are offered each day, Monday through Friday. Classroom instruction involves 28 to 30 hours each week. The first year of high school in China is equivalent to the 10th grade in the United States. First year high school students at a top notch school study trigonometry and set theory.
The school days usually last a whole day (from around 8:00 until 17:00) with 45-minutes-long classes, with a little more flexible schedules in more rural areas. In China's metropolises, where lunch breaks are shorter, kids might finish school around 15:00 as well.
That is, the Chinese education system is widely criticized by its own educators, scholars, and parents for generating toxic levels of stress and producing graduates with high scores, low ability, and poor health (Zhao, 2009. (2009).
To ease the burden on overwhelmed schoolchildren, China's Ministry of Education has announced that primary schools should no longer assign homework. But far from the desired outcome of relieving stress across the board, the new policy has parents and teachers worried.
Becky Francis, a visiting professor at King's College London, director of education at the Royal Society of Arts and one of the researchers, says: "Our main argument is that families of Chinese heritage see taking education seriously as a fundamental pillar of their Chinese identity, and a way of differentiating ...
Nine-year compulsory education policy in China enables students over six years old nationwide to have free education at both primary schools (grade 1 to 6) and junior secondary schools (grade 7 to 9). The policy is funded by government, tuition is free. Schools still charge miscellaneous fees.
Without experienced teachers and stimulating learning spaces, the few rural students who can pursue higher education do not make it as far as their urban peers. Less than 5% of rural students are admitted to universities, while over 70% of urban students attend, contributing to China's rural-urban education gap.
Cultural China: Deep respect for teachers -- a tradition spanning ages. BEIJING, Jan. 8 (Xinhua) -- Honoring teachers and their intelligence has always been a tradition in China. Since ancient times, teachers have been respected by people as messengers of wisdom.
In China, the summer vacation typically begins around mid-July, though some schools will break up as early as late June. The vacation period lasts for about 2 months, which students can spend doing different things.
Students usually attend four or five classes in the morning and another two or three in the afternoon. Each class is 40 minutes long with a 10-minute break in between and the lunch break is approximately 60 to 90 minutes long, depending on the school.
In China, primary school education is compulsory and it lasts 6 years. Children start schools at age six (seven in some areas).
Throughout the past three months there have been at least 30 strikes by Chinese teachers. In the map below, which is taken from the CLB article, the numbers are strike frequencies. Many of them occurred in smaller cities and higher-poverty inland areas.
Recent surveys show that 99.9 percent of school-age girls are receiving formal education in China, thanks to decades of efforts by the government to ensure gender equality in education.
Hengshui High School is a strict-discipline school that its students must obey a strict set of rules and regulations. Students are all required to study more than 15 hours per day and almost 7 days per week.
Surprising Student Stress Statistics
50% of middle school students reported feeling stressed over academics all the time, while 75% of high school students felt the same. Around 500 Japanese students below the age of 20 kill themselves each year. The U.S. ranks first as the country with the most stressed students.
Going to school in China is a tough feat. Burdened with classes 6.5 days a week, from 7:30am to 9pm, students' livelihoods are fully consumed with school, homework, and studying and have very little room for extra curricular activities and play. See my last post for closer look at the Chinese schooling system.
A typical school day
School hours are generally from 8.45am to 3.00pm Monday to Friday. In a typical school day, there are five to eight lessons, ranging from 40 minutes to one hour. There are two breaks in the school day – a morning tea break (recess) and a lunch break, both of which are supervised by teachers.
Students attend school from Monday to Friday each week, with many schools having compulsory team sports events on Saturday mornings. School hours vary slightly across Australia but are generally from 8:30am to 3:30pm each school day.
Japan, however, had the most school days per year--220 days--compared with 180 days for France and the United States. The German school year was 185 days, while U.K. school kids attended classes for 190 days. Japanese children had only 12 weeks of holidays a year, almost a month less than French and American students.