Romania’s education minister caps homework time for students

Romania’s education minister yesterday presented an order that sets the maximum time that Romanian students should spend doing their homework.

The order rules that the compulsory homework shouldn’t take more than one hour for primary education pupils and two hours for secondary education students. Moreover, students will no longer get any holiday homework, reports local News.ro.

The average time a student spends learning in school and at home should be between 5 and 8 hours per day, according to the order.

The minister signed the decision on November 28. Education minister Mircea Dumitru says this order aims to “prevent school abuse over the children’s spare time”.

“We are on a wrong path with this approach of continuously giving repetitive homework that only wear down the students’ nerves and push them away from school,” he added. However, the order doesn’t include any penalties.

Parents think that the idea behind this order is good but fear that it will lead to their children not getting any homework at all. They think that an afterschool system needs to be implemented.

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