(ECNS) -- A report suggests that Chinese students spend three hours every day on average doing homework, twice as much as the global average, three times the level in France, four times that in Japan and six times that in South Korea.
The report was based on big data generated by 20 million users of education app Afanti in 31 provinces over a year period.
It shows that 26.4 percent of students spend at least two hours doing homework, while 28.7 percent will take as long as four hours.
Accordingly, most Chinese students sleep less than 7 hours every night, 1.5 hours less than their global peers. Besides, 46.3 percent of junior high students usually go to bed after 11 p.m., while nearly 90 percent of senior high students have stay up late. Some 8.89 percent of students in east China's city of Nanjing go to sleep no earlier than 12 o'clock.
Difficult and sophisticated questions are major contributors to long homework hours. The report shows that most surveyed students have trouble in math, with boys troubled by algebra and girls by geometry. Meanwhile, Chinese essay comprehension and composition, as well as English writing are all headaches for students.
Despite the devotion of time, 30 percent of students report they have unsolved questions in their homework every day. For the unfinished parts, 44.9 percent of parents will tell their children to give up, while 32.7 percent will finish the homework for their kids.
Earlier this month, a 15-year-old student in central China's Henan Province died of sudden cardiac arrest in class. The probable link between his death and the late sleep hour the night before again brought the homework overload issue into the spotlight.
The report suggests "not finishing homework" has become one of the top three reasons for teachers to punish students, which is believed to have added to the overall burden.
