SHENZHEN middle school students are scrambling for volunteer jobs driven by a pilot policy issued by the city’s education authority last year that links voluntary service hours with a student’s application for senior high school.

The policy stipulated that students can have four points added to their comprehensive quality assessment if the hours they served at charity events, voluntary activities and doing community service totaled more than 24 hours. The assessment is an important reference when applying to senior high schools.

Some parents thought this was a good idea while others thought it put extra burdens on students, as well as parents since sometimes they have to help their children compete for a place doing voluntary jobs, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported.

In response, the Municipal Education Bureau recently released an announcement briefing the comprehensive quality assessment policy, saying that the assessment result would not be added to a student’s total grade on the high school entrance examination. It will only serve as a reference for art students and in situations when students have the same grades or are applying to provincial first-level senior high schools.

The authority also said in the statement that students can upload photos, videos and stories about their participation in charity activities to the assessment system on their own.

The range of charity activities includes those organized by schools and students, service events held in communities and voluntary services listed on Shenzhen’s volunteer platform on WeChat (account: zhiyuanshenzhen).

Some parents told the reporter with the Daily that most parents only learned about the WeChat platform for looking for volunteer jobs after the policy was implemented, which caused a shortage of volunteer jobs.

As the platform requires volunteers to upload photos for verification, some parents thought this went against their original intention, which was to do good things without seeking recognition.

One charity activity even required volunteers to ask others to donate money in order to complete the job and get the point for their service hours.

However, a woman surnamed Liu said that her kid had finished over 80 hours of volunteer services, which in Liu’s eyes is good for her kid’s growth, according to the report.

(Wang Jingli)