我国青少年近视率居世界首位 手机禁入校园论引争议

According to the latest research conducted by the World Health Organization (WHO), the number of myopic patients in China has reached 600 million, making it the country with the largest number of teenagers with myopia in the world. A monitoring report on the quality of compulsory education pointed out that 36.5 percent and 65.3 percent of fourth and eighth graders in China are having problems with shortsightedness.

To protect schoolchildren and teenagers’ eyes from myopia, the Ministry of Education and National Health Commission has jointly drafted an implementation plan to prevent and control the myopic problems of schoolchildren and teenagers, seeking feedback from the public on whether students should be banned from using cellphones on campuses — a rule that was passed in France on July 30 and will take effect starting the new semester in September.

The plan specifies the roles of families, schools, medical care and health institutions, and students themselves in preventing and controlling the myopia problem. Concrete measures to address the problem are also listed in the plan, including encouraging students to go outdoors often, do more physical exercise, and getting at least an hour of natural light exposure per day.

Moreover, teachers are advised not to assign written homework to first and second graders. For third through sixth graders, their written homework should take no longer than one hour to complete, and senior high students should be able to finish their homework within an hour and a half.

However, the plan has been met with mixed reactions. Some think that smartphones provide students with a great channel to the outside world, while others believe students should be completely banned from using cell phones to protect their eyes.

“We should strike a balance on the issue,” said Yin Fei, deputy head of Children’s Development and Family Education Research Center at Nanjing Normal University, “Parents should play the role of supervisors to control the time children spending on cellphones. Families and schools should guide students to use cellphones properly and let them play a positive role in children’s daily lives.”

(Yang Mei)