Liaoning prohibits grading of homework by parents

The education authority in Liaoning province has joined a handful of others in banning teachers from asking parents to grade students' homework after the practice sparked an outcry on social media platforms.

Teachers at primary and middle schools who do not grade students' homework themselves will not be eligible for promotion or awards, and school principals who allow the practice will be disqualified, according to the guideline issued by the provincial education department on Tuesday.

Teachers will not be allowed to use the WeChat or QQ messaging apps to assign homework or assign punitive or repetitive homework, the guideline said.

The education bureau in Taiyuan, Shanxi province, issued a similar guideline last month, forbidding teachers from passing the buck on grading homework to parents.

A guideline issued by the education bureau of a district in Weifang, Shandong province, earlier this month stipulated that teachers should not perfunctorily grade students' homework or avoid grading it at all.

In a video posted on the Sina Weibo social media platform recently, a father in Jiangsu province blasted teachers for asking parents to grade children's homework in a parent-teacher WeChat group before exiting the group.

"What can you do now that I have quit the parent-teacher WeChat group?" the father asked. "What's your value since I'm the one who teaches my child and grades his homework? If I have so much time to check messages on the group all the time, I do not need you anymore."

The video quickly sparked an angry reaction toward the teacher and an outpouring of support from parents, with the hashtag "all it needs to break a grown-up is a parent-teacher WeChat group" being viewed more than 760 million times.

Zhou Xi, a teacher at a middle school in Hunan province, said he opposes the practice of asking parents to grade students' homework.

"Grading students' homework is part of the job requirement for teachers, and they should not be lazy and shirk the responsibility," he said.

Xiong Bingqi, deputy head of the 21st Century Education Research Institute in Beijing, said the reason parents lash out against grading homework is that they already endure too much peer pressure and competition to provide the best education for their children.