Hangzhou schoolkids can now stop working on their homework at 10 pm

All they need is a parent’s signature and they can turn their homework in unfinished

The Hangzhou school system is testing out a new idea to make students’ lives less like a living hell.

If middle school students in the city’s Shangcheng and Gongshu districts are unable to finish their homework by 10 pm, they can now simply stop doing it and turn it in unfinished with a parent signature. Meanwhile, primary school kids don’t have to work past 9 pm, reports CGTN.

In addition, the education bureau guidelines specify that no homework assignment should be assigned that would take students more than an hour to complete and students below second grade should not be assigned any paper-based homework assignments whatsoever.

Meanwhile, schools in eastern Zhejiang province are also experimenting with another new policy that’s aimed at getting kids a good night’s rest, mandating that primary and middle schools can not begin classes before 8 am, while 1st and 2nd graders won’t have to start before 8:30 am.

Prior to this rule going into effect, many schools were starting up at 7:00 am or 7:30 am.

“My son used to get up at 6:20 am He needed to arrive at school before 7 am. So I had to get up at 5:45 am to cook breakfast for him. We have followed the same routine for the past six years. I don’t understand why elementary school started so early,” Xinhua quotes one mother as saying.

Chinese parents are increasingly becoming concerned about the stresses placed on their children by China’s rigorous education system. A study last year found that Chinese kids do almost three hours of homework a night, triple the world average.

Last week, a 12-year-old girl in Jiangxi province tried to kill herself by jumping from the 15th floor of her building after being unable to finish all of the homework that she had been assigned to complete over winter break. Fortunately, she survived the fall, landing on an air cushion placed on the ground by firefighters.