“Double Reduction” Policy in China
Aoran Wu
China is currently experiencing a great change in the field of education. That is, as the “Double Reduction” policy indicates, to reduce the amount of time K12 students devote to complete homework and to reduce extracurricular training (Yu, 2021). This policy has a huge influence on Chinese K12 students because it changes the schooling in China and combats the key issue of excessive educational pressure on K12 students.
It has been common for Chinese K12 schools to assign a lot of homework that students have to start from six pm to around eleven pm. And many Chinese students go to expensive private extracurricular trainning schools on the weekends. However, as an article about schools in Finland mentions, Finnish schools only assign limited homework and Finnish students go to free public schools (Partanen, 2011). In comparison to Chinese schools with a lot of educational pressure, Finland creates a relatively less-pressured and fair educational environment for students.
Currently, through the “Double Reduction” policy, Regulations in the “Double Reduction” policy will make the Chinese school system more similar to that in Finland. To be more detailed, similar regulations will include reducing the homework load across grades(less than ninety minutes for each K12 student), closing down extracurricular schools, and providing free online courses for each student (Yu, 2021). With these regulations, Chinese students will be less stressed and have more time for their own interests.
Since the “Double Reduction” policy, the two largest Chinese extracurricular education companies faced losses of billions of dollars from not providing their services. Even though there could be a large impact on the economy, the Chinese government implements the “Double Reduction” policy without hesitation. This demonstrates the Chinese government’s devotion to reduce their students’ stress. With the new regulations similar to those in successful Finnish schools, China expects similar positive outcomes with its students(Yu, 2021).
Works Cited
Partanen, A. (2011). What Americans Keep Ignoring About Finland’s School Success. The
Atlantic.https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/12/what-americans-keep-ig
noring-about-finlands-school-success/250564/
Yu, S. (2021). The General Office of the Central Committee of the State Council issued the
“Opinions on Further Education and Practice of Student Work and Off-campus
Training Reports”. Xinhuashe.
