Can strengthening school trusteeship reduce the burden on parents?
Only by facing the three major problems can we properly solve the "3:30 problem"
During the National Two Sessions in 2021, the Central Committee of the Peasants and Workers Party submitted the "Proposal on Implementing Free Trusteeship for Primary School Students", suggesting the establishment of a special work leading group for free trusteeship for primary school students to give full play to the government's active role in funding, form, content, etc., which aroused heated public opinion Netizens praised this as "the most popular suggestion."
The "difficulty in picking up and dropping off" young children has always been a problem that plagues countless parents.
According to relevant requirements, primary schools in many cities in our country are closed from 15:00-15:30, and most parents of students are off work after 17:00, so there is a "gap period" for primary school student guardianship, "three o'clock" The "half" problem has become a national social problem.
Not long ago, at a press conference held by the Ministry of Education, the Director of the Department of Basic Education Lu Yugang stated that all localities must promote the implementation of full coverage of after-school services in compulsory education schools, link up with local normal off-get off work hours, and effectively solve the problem of parents' difficulties in picking up students.
It has become a consensus to provide after-school services to elementary school students, but to do a good job of this popular support project, we must face up to three major issues.
One is the issue of "funds".
Needless to say, providing students with post-class services as an extra work for faculty and staff should be paid accordingly, which involves the cost of post-class services.
It is undoubtedly an important reason why the banning of evening nursery classes that bloomed all over the year involves arbitrary fees.
With the passage of time, with the improvement of economic conditions and the enhancement of government service awareness, many places have resumed after-school care services in elementary schools. The expenses are paid for by the finances, and some areas charge appropriate fees from parents on a voluntary basis.
Financial resources allow, of course, it should be "all free".
However, for places where the conditions are temporarily unavailable and financial investment is difficult, parents can also be allowed to share the cost reasonably based on the principle of "Public Welfare" in after-school services.
The inability to pay teachers reasonable remuneration must not affect the enthusiasm of teachers and the quality of after-school services. This is the big problem.
The second is the "content" issue, which is one of the key factors that determine the quality of the "3:30 course".
At the beginning of the school's after-school service, many people thought that this was the "restoration" of the evening nursery school that year.
actually not.
After-school custody service is not a new bottle of old wine, nor is it a simple continuation of school curriculum teaching.
With the development of the times, the requirements of parents do not only stop at the level of picking up and taking care of the children, but also hope that the school can give full play to the role of the main channel and maximize its own resources to provide children with places of interest.
Therefore, the school’s after-school services must be upgraded. It should be upgraded from simple custody care to rich delayed services. In addition to guiding students to complete their homework in school as much as possible, helping students with learning difficulties tutoring and tutoring, it also lies in adhering to the principle of volunteerism and offering rich services. Colorful interest activities to meet the diverse needs of parents.
Regrettably, as far as the author knows, many schools that provide after-school services are basically limited to the level of care and homework guidance.
In addition to the comparative discount (or free), there is no difference in the function of the off-campus "small dining table".
To carry out in-school after-school services, we must have high-quality development goals, not only to allow students to "stay", but also to "retain" and "effective".
For example, it may be possible to consider combining quality education to develop scientific and artistic club activities, combining myopia prevention and control to increase sports activities, combining labor education to develop practical skills, combining mental health education to provide counseling and counseling services, and so on.
The third is the "teacher" issue.
"Teachers" and "content" are inseparable.
If the after-school service is only positioned in the nature of the “night care class” of the year, the teachers in the school are sufficient.
If after-school services are to be more colorful and distinctive, then schools must be opened and teachers must be introduced.
In order to solve this problem, in addition to giving full play to parent resources, various localities have also tried to attract outstanding college students, cultural and sports workers, folk artists and other social enthusiasts to provide various forms of public welfare services through various channels in practice.
In view of this, the proposal submitted by the Central Committee of the Peasants and Workers Party proposes to fully excavate social resources such as communities, colleges and universities, social institutions, and parents of students, to form a trusteeship force, and build a school-based trusteeship service system for primary school students with multiple social participation.
In order to do a good job in the public welfare reform of after-school services, all localities have been "struggling", but there is still a lot of work that needs to be further implemented if we want to learn the classics well.
□Hu Xinhong, senior teacher of No. 2 Middle School of Quzhou, Zhejiang Province, researcher of Zhejiang Youth Public Opinion Center
Students, teachers, and parents are all crying over how to solve the old problem of primary school education
Recently, Ma Guangyu, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference,’s proposal to "completely cancel primary school homework and postpone primary school school hours" has received widespread attention from all walks of life.
This proposal focuses on two issues. On the one hand, it is the excessive schoolwork burden of primary school students; on the other hand, it is the unspeakable suffering of countless parents who accompany their children to do their homework.
Judging from media reports, Commissioner Ma Guangyu’s proposal also wanted to take into account multiple aspects: for example, it was said that “it is recommended to completely cancel the homework of primary school students”, and then “the cancellation of homework does not mean that children are not allowed to study, but the place where homework is written is at school. , The person who changed the homework was the teacher, not the parent."
The concern and controversy aroused after the proposal was made public also provided us with an important opportunity to reflect on China's basic education.
A problem facing elementary school education is: the people all over the country know that students are burdened with learning and that children are tired; parents say that they are busy with work, and it is unspeakable to accompany their children to do homework at night; teachers also say that work is stressful and physically and mentally exhausted.
Parents are reluctant to let students go home early from school; when school is postponed, teachers will complain when students finish their homework at school.
Looking closely at this problem, it is not difficult to find that the crux of the problem lies in the student's homework.
There are too many homework for primary school students, so that students do not participate in physical exercises, time to relax, and also squeeze out students' extracurricular reading time.
The importance of physical exercise and extracurricular reading is self-evident, as Commissioner Ma Guangyu said: “The heavy homework has overdrafted the physical and mental health and willingness of children to learn in advance, which is very detrimental to the cultivation of innovative talents.”
The question is, is it feasible to completely cancel the homework of primary school students?
Teachers may accept the uniform cancellation of primary school students’ homework, but will there be resistance from parents?
I'm afraid that the opposition from the parents continues one after another.
Because, as long as there is no major adjustment in the educational mechanism centered on the admission of college entrance examinations, parents will probably scramble to send their children to off-campus educational institutions.
Some people may suggest, “Conduct an in-depth and comprehensive inspection of primary school students’ burden reduction across the country, and ban off-campus commercial training institutions for intellectual education at the primary level.” This is too simple to think about the problem, it is destined to not be an administrative force. The war won.
Therefore, in my opinion, in the absence of major changes in the educational mechanism, the most realistic solution to this problem at present is to take two steps:
The first step is to control and reduce the total amount of homework for primary school students. Now there are too many homework for students, mainly due to two reasons. One is the lack of communication and coordination when assigning homework by teachers of various subjects. Each teacher only sees his own subject. , But the poor child has to face teachers in several courses.
The second is that many teachers have outdated teaching concepts and like to give students a large number of mechanical and repetitive training types of homework. Such homework content is monotonous and boring, which can easily destroy students' basic interest in a certain type of knowledge and should be abolished.
I think that these two problems can be resolved if the school takes them seriously: the school should establish a reasonable organization to coordinate the assignment of homework by the teachers between each grade and each subject, and guide the teachers in the comprehensiveness and interest of the homework. Work harder so that the total amount of student work can be effectively controlled.
The second step in solving the problem is to cancel the primary school students' homework.
After the primary school students’ homework is completely abolished, we need to allow social forces to play a greater role outside of schools and families.
For example, let various communities establish extracurricular care institutions for children, and have professionals to guide students to carry out various activities including extracurricular reading; it can also cultivate more social professional institutions that specialize in "after-school services" for primary school students. , So that children have more choices.
Of course, the effective implementation of all this requires more room for social organizations to grow, and it also needs to learn from the practices of some countries and regard "child care" as a social welfare undertaking. Only in this way, it is truly conducive to the physical and mental health of children. "After-school service" can form a feasible long-term mechanism.
□Wang Tianding, Professor of Ocean University of China
■ Investigation
Nearly 80% of parents disagree with the complete cancellation of homework
As a parent, do you want the school to offer after-school care services?
What do you want the after-school service to include?
How do you hope the school will "lighten the burden" on parents?
Recently, the topic of "after-school care" has once again been widely discussed.
The Beijing News launched an online survey on after-school services, and conducted surveys on after-school care and burdens that parents care about.
Among the interviewees, 68.02% of parents agreed that the school should provide on-campus after-school care services.
Among them, "sports activities" are the after-school services that parents hope most for schools, and more than 80% of parents are willing to open sports activities for school after-school care services.
Only 34.21% of parents support their children's free activities during and after school care time in school.
There are also 14.41% of parents who do not support the strengthening of school custody.
Among them, the most prominent reason is that parents believe that the quality of school care is low and cannot improve their children's academic performance. This reason accounts for 71.9% of the total number of parents who do not support school care.
What tasks do parents have the most "headache" for the school?
60.36% of parents said that they had helped their children with homework such as hand-written newspapers.
40.54% of parents said that the school requires parents to check or correct their children's homework.
33.33% of parents believe that it is also a burden to give their children homework and sign notifications.
During the investigation, a parent added: Now that everything needs to be clocked in, it is actually a forced transfer of the adult set to the child. Instead, it has formed a mentality of "if you don't clock in, there is no motivation to do it".
The majority of parents (76.13%) disagreed with the “complete cancellation of primary school homework” suggested by the National People’s Congress representative at the National People’s Congress in 2021.
Among these parents, 89.35% believe that children’s knowledge cannot be consolidated without leaving homework; “Much of what elementary school students learn is only to be remembered through repeated exercises.” One parent said.
After-school service is a social project
Cheng Fangping, Professor, School of Education, Renmin University of China
The provision of after-school services by schools is a social project.
The after-school service provided by the school involves the workload of teachers and activity venues. If the after-school service is carried out outside the school, it also involves many issues such as safety and the opening of social institutions.
It is obviously unreasonable and unrealistic if these problems are solved by schools. It is necessary to coordinate the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Industry and Commerce and other institutions at the national level.
Since it is to provide after-school services, it is necessary to treat elementary and middle school students as a very large service target and have a sense of service.
At the national level, related cost issues also need to be considered. The state should invest in relevant financial support, and schools should also establish special education funds.
At the same time, the state can also reduce taxes and guide private educational institutions outside schools to provide public welfare courses to students.
At the same time, it should be protected from a legal perspective.
Improving the quality of after-school service is fundamental
Li Zhengtao, Director of the Institute of Basic Education Reform and Development, East China Normal University
The most fundamental issue that needs to be considered when carrying out after-school services is how to improve the educational quality of after-school services.
First of all, it is necessary to set up the content of after-school service, and do a good job in the design and development of after-school service courses, which is the foundation.
Secondly, it is necessary to select excellent teachers for after-school services, train these teachers accordingly, and incorporate them into the teacher training, teacher training, and teacher professional development systems, including the teacher evaluation and assessment system, to motivate teachers to engage in after-school services The enthusiasm of service.
Finally, it is necessary to adjust and rebuild the teaching and research mechanism, and make after-school service and its quality a part of the school's daily teaching and research.
At the same time, we must also see that the development of after-school services is a systematic project and a complex project. It is related to the integration of school education, family education, and community education, and involves the coordination of multiple subjects such as principals, subject teachers, class teachers, and parents. .
For example, the education administrative department should formulate a guarantee mechanism or related system regulations to promote after-school services, and provide various supports for schools and teachers.
In terms of after-school service fees, I think there is no “one size fits all” for the need to pay. Where conditions and schools are possible, parents can pay appropriately, and the responsibility cannot be passed on to schools and teachers.
Explore multiple after-school hosting models
Zhou Hongyu Representative of the National People's Congress, Professor of Central China Normal University
Judging from the current situation of the school, it is still very difficult to implement the requirement that the school's after-school services be fully connected to the parents' off-duty time.
At present, policy support and funding support are not in place. Schools are not easy to do, and the burden on teachers will be heavier.
First of all, it is necessary to clarify the public welfare of after-school custody in schools, and provide basic school custody services with "protection" and "care" as the main content for primary school students in need; second, actively explore school-community cooperation, introduce public welfare institutions and The public welfare trusteeship model of social volunteers encourages social organizations to enter, and social organizations, public welfare organizations, and service groups provide trusteeship services; third, pilot a for-profit trusteeship model where government pays and market institutions enter schools.
In the case of insufficient public welfare resources, this type of hosting model can be used as a transition.
Parents cannot think that after-school services should be entirely the responsibility of the school.
The more personalized needs of parents do not belong to the scope of school after-school services. This type of service should be provided by the market.
Child care needs to be completed by the home and school
Ni Minjing Member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, Deputy Director of the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission
Shanghai Elementary School provides services to parents in two periods after class, which can be extended to six o'clock in the evening.
Some parents with personalized needs can pick up their children home after school.
As far as Shanghai is concerned, after the launch of the after-school service, the number of parents taking their children to make up lessons has decreased, and the children also like the interest activities organized by the school.
It will take time to prove whether it can really reduce the burden on families and students.
There are two measures to be put in place in the school.
The first is to make overall arrangements and teachers take turns to participate in after-school services to reduce the pressure on teachers; the second is to incorporate teachers’ participation in after-school services into performance and increase teachers’ performance pay.
At present, the increase in performance wages for teachers in Shanghai due to participation in after-school services is borne by the district finance.
Taking care of children after school is an objective need that needs to be completed by society, family and school.
Within a reasonable time frame, schools take the initiative to assume responsibility. This is an aspect of the education system's contribution to social development, and it is a popular project.
However, parents should not take care to understand that nursing is the responsibility of the school. Parents should take into account the teachers' hard work and dedication, and avoid the situation of "parents playing outside and leaving their children in school late to pick them up".
Beijing News reporter Qi Wang