With the arrival of the summer vacation in primary and secondary schools around the world, children have valuable leisure time, but some troubles for parents follow.
For most families, how to achieve both work and childcare during the summer vacation and scientifically plan and arrange the children's time have become a difficult problem.
"Parents have to go to work and leave their child alone at home, fearing that he will be bored, and also worried that playing with electronic products will affect his eyesight. It is really uneasy to let him go out to play alone," said Ms. Wang, a resident of Shanghai.
Entrusting children to the care of the elderly is a choice for many families.
But nowadays, some young parents have higher requirements for their children's education.
Feng Junlan, a reader in Xi'an, Shaanxi, wrote in a letter: "We sent our children to the rural hometown for a period of time during the summer vacation. The children have a good relationship with their grandparents, and the amount of outdoor activities is guaranteed. But the elderly can't help their children with their studies. What are you busy with, after the child comes back, there are a lot of homework problems in the summer vacation, and parents have to help him little by little."
Mr. Yu, a citizen of Xinyang, Henan, and his wife are dual workers and have two children at home.
"The old people on both sides are old and their health is not good. Although they can help look after the children, they are not able to do enough. In order to be safe and secure, the elderly and children have to stay at home as much as possible during the summer vacation." Mr. Yu said, "Summer vacation It is a rare leisure time for children, and parents also want to arrange the time for study, play and rest as much as possible, so that children can play safely and happily, and they can exercise their bodies through outdoor activities, cultivate their sentiments, and develop their body and mind healthily.”
The ever-expanding market demand has spawned professional custodial institutions, which have solved some of the parents' problems.
In July 2021, the General Office of the Ministry of Education issued the "Notice on Supporting the Exploration and Development of Summer Custody Services", proposing to guide and support qualified places to actively explore and develop summer custody services.
Subsequently, a group of trusteeship classes set up by communities, schools, enterprises and other entities appeared in Jiangsu, Sichuan, Hebei and other places. Interest development, homework guidance and other services.
Not long ago, a number of cities including Jinan, Shandong issued notices one after another, requiring counties and municipalities to select a trusteeship school based on the actual situation to provide summer trusteeship services. Students and parents voluntarily sign up to participate. .
The main items of summer care services include providing students with places for learning activities, opening classrooms, libraries, activity rooms, sports venues and other facilities, guiding students to complete their summer homework, and encouraging schools to carry out extracurricular reading, educational games, arts and sports activities, comprehensive Practical activities, etc.
However, some readers reported that some chaos was also found in the process of developing summer hosting services.
For example, some schools compel students to participate in summer custody, called "custody", which is actually a centralized supplementary course to learn the next stage of courses in advance.
If students do not participate, they will be left behind in their learning progress, and some parents believe that this approach violates the relevant requirements of the education department.
The Ministry of Education recently issued the "Notice on Doing a Good Job in the Summer of Primary and Secondary Schools in 2022", which clearly stated that it is strictly prohibited to use the summer vacation to organize group make-up lessons, teach new courses or start school ahead of schedule.
There are also letters from readers saying that there are still shortcomings and deficiencies in the supply of summer hosting services.
In some community-sponsored summer care classes, the staff are mainly community volunteers, whose professionalism needs to be improved, and the services they can provide are relatively simple.
When it is difficult for the community to provide suitable custody services, parents turn to market-based custody institutions, but the fees are relatively high.
At present, the average price of market hosting services in some cities is about 200 yuan per day, and the average daily price for high fees is about 400 yuan, which is a lot of expenses for ordinary families.
"Summer custodial services are just a necessity for some parents, and management measures for custodial service institutions should be introduced as soon as possible, to clarify the management requirements of custodial institutions, and to provide a safe and happy environment for children." Li Jiaming, a reader in Zhenjiang, Jiangsu, said that although Some summer custodial institutions are temporary, but they cannot relax their requirements in terms of safety and supervision. "For example, there should be clear requirements for the area of custodian institutions, fire protection, staff and teachers, food safety, etc., and the competent department of the custodian institution should also be clearly defined. , organize regular law enforcement activities, crack down on custodial institutions' violations of laws and regulations, and guide custodian institutions to develop in a standardized manner."
Bao Lei, a researcher at the Institute of Sociology, Jiangsu Academy of Social Sciences, said that to solve the problem of children's summer custody, a multi-pronged approach should be taken. In addition to vigorously developing custody institutions, relevant units can also be encouraged to allow dual-earner families, single-parent families to work from home or flexibly work at staggered times. Relevant departments can appropriately formulate preferential policies to encourage them; while at the community level, while doing a good job in epidemic prevention and control, take the community as a unit and provide some help to parents with the help of volunteers, social workers, grid members, etc.