Discussion keeps the world turning.
This is Round Table.
You're listening to Round Table, I'm FeiFei together with Yu Shan and Steve Hatherly.
Coming up: this summer when families are supposed to ditch books and have fun,
parents end up as an unpaid teaching assistant, printing, monitoring, and planning their children's work themselves.
Teachers say they don't want to burden anyone.
Schools say they're following rules.
And parents say they just want their kids to keep up.
So why does the burden still land on the desk?
Is it the teachers dodging the rules, schools chasing rankings, or parents too afraid to say no?
Summer holiday is supposed to mean a break from school,
but for many Chinese families, it now seems to come with a new piece of equipment: a printer.
As schools increasingly send worksheets, reading material, and other assignments on digital files,
families are finding themselves printing hundreds of pages at home, monitoring online "clock-ins,"
helping with projects that were supposed to be their children's work.
So why has so much of the school workload ended up at home,
and where should we draw the line between supporting our children and doing the school work for them?
It's the time of summer holiday, Yu Shan and Steve.
I do got asked multiple times in recent month, actually, about: Do you have a printer at home?
And I asked back like, why? Why do I need a printer at home?