The amount of time Hong Kong primary school students spend both in-classes and doing homework exceeds the global average, a study has shown.
The findings come amid a citywide debate over the Territory-wide System Assessment (TSA), which some parents say cause too much stress and should be abolished. The tests are taken by primary and secondary students in local schools, and where extra work is often given to students to help them score and raise the school’s profile.
Professor Tse Shek Kam from the University of Hong Kong Faculty of Education took part in a 2011 global study that interviewed around 4,000 students from 150 primary schools across Hong Kong, RTHK reported.
It was found that local primary school pupils go to school 191 days a year for an average of 5.1 hours every day—both of which are beyond than the global average. Fifty-three percent of local students spend over an hour on homework each day, longer than their counterparts in Taiwan and Singapore as well as the global average.
Earlier in November, Legislative Councillor Michael Tien told Secretary for Education Eddie Ng that “primary school students currently have to complete an average seven to 10 assignments daily. Some lower primary students have even been given 23 assignments before the weekend break, and have to work until midnight on Sunday to complete them.”
However, the study also found that students who spend a longer amount of time on their homework possess poorer reading skills.
This shows that more homework is not necessarily better, Tse said: Activities at home are also part of one’s education, and if homework restricted the student’s room to think for themselves, there will be a price to pay.
Although students in Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong score high, they have low motivation and confidence and lack flexibility and creativity later in life.
A separate study on the stress levels of primary school students in China also showed that students in the mainland spends an average of three hours doing schoolwork every evening and sleep less than seven hours, Oriental Daily reported in November.
This meant that time spent on homework in China was twice the global average, three times that of France, four times that of Japan, and six times that of South Korea.
