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The Taipei City government has announced the abolition of summer and winter vacation homework to let the students plan out their own holidays. This has provoked heated discussion among parents and teachers.

Gon Ya-wen, the director of the Bureau of Education of New Taipei City, says that given the difference between rural and urban societies, New Taipei City will not implement this policy and authorities will still be responsible for arranging the students’ studies during holidays.

Liberty Times reports, Gong believes that giving homework is like teaching students how to paint. Gifted children can decide what to draw on their own, while normal children need to be given instructions or told what to draw.

UDN reports, Wang Yong-zhi, a teacher at Wun-fu Elementary School in Kaohsiung City, says that various kinds of homework, such as ecology research or travel journals, might become the parents’ homework if the parents bear the traditional sense of competitiveness for their children.

Fang Mei-xia, one of the directors of Xinghua Elementary School in Taipei City, says that her child has always wanted to build a Lego ship but has no time during school days. This can be the perfect summer or winter vacation project for her child.

A netizen recently shared a summer vacation homework that she recently heard about. The assignment was to have the children collect insects from more than six cities, raise them and keep a journal. The netizen says that traveling over six cities within two months means the family has to travel once every ten days, which is impossible for parents who have jobs and not every family can afford the travel expense.

Translated by June
Edited by Olivia Yang

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