School day goes flexible in Nanjing
(ec.js.edu.cm) Updated：2017-03-01
Students in the flexible school day scheme play games at Langya Road School on Feb 20. [Photo by Xu Yi provided to Nanjing Daily]
A flexible school day program has been fully implemented at more than 350 primary schools in Nanjing since Feb 20.
Nearly 50,000 students currently participate in the scheme, accounting for 15 percent of the total, higher than the previous survey thanks to the publicity of schools and the media, according to an official.
Many parents fail to pick up their children from school after getting off work late. The scheme aims to solve this problem by delaying students’ leaving time until 5 pm during the winter semester (from Nov 1 to Mar 31 the following year) and 6 pm for the other semesters.
Students are looked after mainly by teachers during their stay at the school. Meanwhile, activities are organized for them, such as reading, homework and games.
Nanjing municipal government encourages three methods for running this scheme. Some schools self-manage the scheme, some turn to their local communities and some work with qualified non-profit organizations.
According to a recent survey, over 95 percent of parents approve of the government funding allocated to the scheme and less than 5 percent are dissatisfied.
“The scheme cannot be implemented successfully without the support of people from all walks of life. The department of education will join hands with other departments to keep optimizing our scheme to better serve people,” said Sun Baijun, director of the Nanjing education bureau.
