Education authorities in East China’s Zhejiang Province plan to pilot a points-based system to involve more parents in their children’s education, in a response to a previous proposal from a provincial lawmaker who called on promoting the concept that “being a parent with certificates.”
The pilot plans to be carried out among schools that have established digital platform between schools and parents, starting from autumn semester of 2021, said the Zhejiang provincial education authority in a reply to a proposal made by Ding Hangying, a lawmaker from the province-level people’s congress, on Friday.
In the proposal aimed at promoting the concept of “parents with certificates” in Shangcheng district, Hangzhou, the capital city of Zhejiang, to the whole province, the education authority said that the project in the district has become an influential brand of parent education in China, which the whole country can learn from.
“Mastering knowledge and skills related to family education should be a compulsory course for all parents,” said the education authority in the reply.
The move, in which a points-based system will be used, has triggered a widespread discussion on the internet. Some approve of the program, arguing that it will improve parental skills for some.
“A lot of people around me and even myself are not good parents,” said a netizen. “I think to be qualified to be a parent three points should be considered, the education background of family members, work and income, personality and responsibility.”
Others worry that it might become an additional burden for the parents. “It has been very difficult for parents to earn money for their families, why should they learn this?” One netizen complained.
Experts have suggested that the project should be implemented more cautiously and with more concrete measures.
Chu Zhaohui, a research fellow at the National Institute of Education Sciences, told the Global Times on Monday that “the education department should treat the pilot with a more professional attitud.”
“We should strengthen family education, but we should not take the learning of certain knowledge or the knowledge required by a certain department as the premise for having a child,” Chu noted.
“The most important factor is the education that parents receive when they are young themselves, such as discernment and love which all have close relation with the education of their children,” Chu said.
Parents and children select handicrafts during a campus charity bazaar in Changxing County, east China’s Zhejiang Province, April 28, 2019. By selling the handicrafts made of waste materials by children and their parents, the charity bazaar held here on Sunday aims to promote the recycling and low-carbon lifestyle. (Photo: Xinhua)
