The Department of Education in China’s Zhejiang has banned teachers from using WeChat.
Mobile apps are used to assign homework to children. With the internet boom, phones are used by teachers in China to give homework and notices to students and their parents.
Of late, teachers are using WeChat to provide assignments to students. Assignments are not announced in schools but are announced to each student through the internet on their phones.
Parents are also informed about these assignments and are sometimes asked to guide their children with their work. They are even asked to grade their child’s assignment work. The government is now intervening into this practice.
National guidelines have been set by the Ministry of Education to offer more direction to the schools and teachers. This method of shifting the responsibility of teaching from the teacher to the parent has to end, feels the Ministry.
Though this method of reaching out to the students through the internet and phone is not found everywhere in China, this practice is found to be concentrated in certain places and stringent action is now being taken.
In other places like Shenzhen, students are asked to do their work in writing within the school premises or to do their work at home, without interference from the parents.
However, some parents are delighted to help their children. The digital device is very useful, especially as it uses audio and video method of teaching they feel, which makes it even easier.
The Department of Education has further recommended various other pointers to be followed. Teachers are allowed to provide limited online homework. This will solve various problems that are prevailing among school-going children, such as nearsightedness, addiction and misuse of the internet.
An extreme move came from the government when video game playing time was asked to be monitored by the video-game publishers to cap their time in front of the computer.
