what countries do not do homework

• Countries Who Spend the Most Time Doing Homework

Homework is an important aspect of the education system and is often dreaded by the majority of students all over the world. Although many teachers and educational scholars believe homework improves education performance, many critics and students disagree and believe there is no correlation between homework and improving test scores.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is an intergovernmental organization. With headquarters in Paris, the organization was formed for the purpose of stimulating global trade and economic progress among member states. In 2009, the OECD conducted a detailed study to establish the number of hours allocated for doing homework by students around the world and conducted the research in 38 member countries. The test subjects for the study were 15 year old high school students in countries that used PISA exams in their education systems. The results showed that in Shanghai, China the students had the highest number of hours of homework with 13.8 hours per week. Russia followed, where students had an average of 9.7 hours of homework per week. Finland had the least amount of homework hours with 2.8 hours per week, followed closely by South Korea with 2.9 hours. Among all the countries tested, the average homework time was 4.9 hours per week.

Interpretation of the data

Although students from Finland spent the least amount of hours on their homework per week, they performed relatively well on tests which discredits the notion of correlation between the number of hours spent on homework with exam performance. Shanghai teenagers who spent the highest number of hours doing their homework also produced excellent performances in the school tests, while students from some regions such as Macao, Japan, and Singapore increased the score by 17 points per additional hour of homework. The data showed a close relation between the economic backgrounds of students and the number of hours they invested in their homework. Students from affluent backgrounds spent fewer hours doing homework when compared to their less privileged counterparts, most likely due to access to private tutors and homeschooling. In some countries such as Singapore, students from wealthy families invested more time doing their homework than less privileged students and received better results in exams.

Decline in number of hours

Subsequent studies conducted by the OECD in 2012 showed a decrease in the average number hours per week spent by students. Slovakia displayed a drop of four hours per week while Russia declined three hours per week. A few countries including the United States showed no change. The dramatic decline of hours spent doing homework has been attributed to teenager’s increased use of the internet and social media platforms.

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No Tests, No Homework! Here's How Finland Has Emerged As A Global Example Of Quality, Inclusive Education

Others/world,  15 may 2022 3:40 am gmt, editor : shiva chaudhary  | .

Shiva Chaudhary

Digital Editor

A post-graduate in Journalism and Mass Communication with relevant skills, specialising in content editing & writing. I believe in the precise dissemination of information based on facts to the public.

Creatives : Shiva Chaudhary

Student-oriented approach to education in finland has been recognised as the most well-developed educational system in the world and ranks third in education worldwide..

"A quality education grants us the ability to fight the war on ignorance and poverty," - Charles Rangel

The uniqueness of the Finnish education model is encapsulated in its values of neither giving homework to students every day nor conducting regular tests and exams. Instead, it is listening to what the kids want and treating them as independent thinkers of society.

In Finland, the aim is to let students be happy and respect themselves and others.

Goodbye Standardised Exams

There is absolutely no program of nationwide standard testing, such as in India or the U.S, where those exams are the decisive points of one's admission to higher education like Board Examinations or Common Entrance Tests.

In an event organised by Shiksha Sanskriti Utthan Nyas, RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat remarked, "It is because they teach their children to face life struggles and not score in an examination," reported The Print .

Students in Finland are graded based on individual performance and evaluation criteria decided by their teachers themselves. Overall progress is tracked by their government's Ministry of Education, where they sample groups of students across schools in Finland.

Value-Based Education

They are primarily focused on making school a safe and equal space as children learn from the environment.

All Finland schools have offered since the 1980s free school meals, access to healthcare, a focus on mental health through psychological counselling for everyone and guidance sessions for each student to understand their wants and needs.

Education in Finland is not about marks or ranks but about creating an atmosphere of social equality, harmony and happiness for the students to ease learning experiences.

Most of the students spend half an hour at home after school to work on their studies. They mostly get everything done in the duration of the school timings as they only have a few classes every day. They are given several 15 -20 minutes breaks to eat, do recreational activities, relax, and do other work. There is no regiment in school or a rigid timetable, thus, causing less stress as given in the World Economic Forum .

Everyone Is Equal - Cooperate, Not Compete

The schools do not put pressure on ranking students, schools, or competitions, and they believe that a real winner doesn't compete; they help others come up to their level to make everyone on par.

Even though individualism is promoted during evaluation based on every student's needs, collectivity and fostering cooperation among students and teachers are deemed crucial.

While most schools worldwide believe in Charles Darwin's survival of the fittest, Finland follows the opposite but still comes out at the top.

Student-Oriented Model

The school teachers believe in a simple thumb rule; students are children who need to be happy when they attend school to learn and give their best. Focus is put upon teaching students to be critical thinkers of what they know, engage in society, and decide for themselves what they want.

In various schools, playgrounds are created by children's input as the architect talks to the children about what they want or what they feel like playing before setting up the playground.

Compared To The Indian Education Model

Firstly, Finnish children enrol in schools at the age of six rather than in India, where the school age is usually three or four years old. Their childhood is free from constricting education or forced work, and they are given free rein over how they socialise and participate in society.

Secondly, all schools in Finland are free of tuition fees as there are no private schools. Thus, education is not treated as a business. Even tuition outside schools is not allowed or needed, leaving no scope for commodifying education, unlike in India, where multiple coaching centres and private schools require exorbitant fees.

Thirdly, the school hours in Finland do not start early morning at 6 am, or 7 am as done in India. Finland schools begin from 9.30 am as research in World Economic Forum has indicated that schools starting at an early age is detrimental to their health and maturation. The school ends by mostly 2 pm.

Lastly, there is no homework or surprise test given to students in Finland. Teachers believe that the time wasted on assignments can be used to perform hobbies, art, sports, or cooking. This can teach life lessons and have a therapeutic stress-relieving effect on children. Indian schools tend to give a lot of homework to prove their commitment to studying and constantly revise what they learn in school.

Delhi Govt's Focus On Education

The Delhi model of education transformed under the Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP) tenure in the capital. In line with the Finnish model, Delhi government schools have adopted 'Happiness Classes' to ensure students' mental wellness through courses on mindfulness, problem-solving, social and emotional relationships, etc., from 1st to 8th classes.

Delhi government also introduced 'Entrepreneurial Mindset Classes' in 2019 to instil business and critical thinking skills among students of 9th to 12th classes. The practical approach in this class is indicated in the 'Business Blasters', a competition started by the Delhi government to encourage students to come up with start-up ideas and students were provided with ₹1000. Approximately 51,000 students participated in the first edition of the competition, according to Citizen Matters .

Through these endeavours, India is steadily investing in creating human resources that can get employment and generate employment for themselves.

India is at its demographic dividend stage; more than half of its population is within the working-age group of 14 to 60 years. Education is an essential factor in utilising this considerable advantage to grow economically and socially. Finland's education model is how India can strive closer to its goal and progress as a nation.

Also Read: Connaissance! Delhi Board of School Education Pens MoU To Add French In Government Schools

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Countries with Less Homework and Why More Countries Should Follow Them

Countries with less homework and why more countries should follow them: It may sound counter intuitive but studies are showing that less homework might be the right way to go in better learning. 

In an ideal world, students are entitled to an evening of some revision, rest and entertainment after a whole day of study. In many school systems, however, kids are assigned tons of assignments to handle in their free time in a bid to improve their grasp of themes and keep them occupied in books.

As much as the intentions are good, more homework only keeps children drowned in books and does little in achieving the latter. A testament to this, countries with fewer homework policies have better statistics of students that join campus and even lesser dropouts.

A testament to the benefits of fewer time commitment to homework, educational systems in powerhouses like Finland and USA have adopted the policies championing for least homework with the US recommending at most 10 minutes of assignment in any unit per night.

For proper insight, here is a list of countries that embrace the motion for least homework and reasons for other countries to emulate this move. For assistance on homework and clarity on concepts, engage experts on myHomework done , thus earning your student spurs and conceptualizing various classes better.

    1. Finland

On top of the list of countries giving less assignment is Finland. Apart from boasting of short school terms and extended holidays, the country limits the homework load to 2.8 hours total of homework per week.

Despite their educational system, Finland manages to rank among the top countries in math and science innovations and also with a smaller drop-out rate. Due to their approach on education, students feel a lesser burden imposed on them thus embracing learning.

Even better, Finland educational system discourages cramming of concepts and trains teachers to impart lessons to students in a matter that they all understand the information equally.

    2. South Korea

Like the former, South Korea limits its homework duration per week to a maximum of 2.9 hours. By reducing the burden on students, the country boasts of more educated persons per level of education and even lesser dropout rates.

Unlike other countries, South Korea majors on continuous assessments which excel at testing the understanding of students as opposed to daily homework.

     3. Japan

Among the leading countries in technology and science is Japan . Although it has the highest amount of hours for homework per week than its counterparts at 3.8 hours, the numbers are way low than the average.

Even better, the Japanese system of study trains students to gather information from social media platforms thus honing their research and creativity skills. By limiting the amounts of homework, students get to spend quality time with parents thus giving them a platform to instill morals and gain perspective for the upcoming classes.

Reasons why more countries should reduce the homework load on students

    1. By assigning more homework to students, the level of anxiety increases thus leading to low motivation in school work. As such, the productivity and attitude of kids towards education is lowered which in turn leads to more dropout rates and lesser grades.

    2. With alarming rates of obesity and immorality in kids, less homework creates more parent-kid time and allows kids to engage in more co-curricular activities. As such, parents get a chance to instill moral character in kids and also involve kids in sports and exercise.

    3. Time off books allows kids to relax their mind thus increasing the ability to grasp more concepts hence getting the most from every session.

Apart from denying students a change for co-curricular activities, students are also deprived of social time which in turn leads to less time for parents to instill morals in children and also spikes anxiety levels in kids.

Whether more homework is helpful or not is a debatable issue. However, the burden on students leads to daunting effects. Given that academic frontiers assign lesser homework; it shows the need for change in lesser ranking countries.

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The Education Crisis: Being in School Is Not the Same as Learning

First grade students in Pakistan’s Balochistan Province are learning the alphabet through child-friendly flash cards. Their learning materials help educators teach through interactive and engaging activities and are provided free of charge through a student’s first learning backpack. © World Bank 

THE NAME OF THE DOG IS PUPPY. This seems like a simple sentence. But did you know that in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda, three out of four third grade students do not understand it? The world is facing a learning crisis . Worldwide, hundreds of millions of children reach young adulthood without even the most basic skills like calculating the correct change from a transaction, reading a doctor’s instructions, or understanding a bus schedule—let alone building a fulfilling career or educating their children. Education is at the center of building human capital. The latest World Bank research shows that the productivity of 56 percent of the world’s children will be less than half of what it could be if they enjoyed complete education and full health. For individuals, education raises self-esteem and furthers opportunities for employment and earnings. And for a country, it helps strengthen institutions within societies, drives long-term economic growth, reduces poverty, and spurs innovation.

One of the most interesting, large scale educational technology efforts is being led by EkStep , a philanthropic effort in India. EkStep created an open digital infrastructure which provides access to learning opportunities for 200 million children, as well as professional development opportunities for 12 million teachers and 4.5 million school leaders. Both teachers and children are accessing content which ranges from teaching materials, explanatory videos, interactive content, stories, practice worksheets, and formative assessments. By monitoring which content is used most frequently—and most beneficially—informed decisions can be made around future content.

In the Dominican Republic, a World Bank supported pilot study shows how adaptive technologies can generate great interest among 21st century students and present a path to supporting the learning and teaching of future generations. Yudeisy, a sixth grader participating in the study, says that what she likes doing the most during the day is watching videos and tutorials on her computer and cell phone. Taking childhood curiosity as a starting point, the study aimed to channel it towards math learning in a way that interests Yudeisy and her classmates.

Yudeisy, along with her classmates in a public elementary school in Santo Domingo, is part of a four-month pilot to reinforce mathematics using software that adapts to the math level of each student. © World Bank

Adaptive technology was used to evaluate students’ initial learning level to then walk them through math exercises in a dynamic, personalized way, based on artificial intelligence and what the student is ready to learn. After three months, students with the lowest initial performance achieved substantial improvements. This shows the potential of technology to increase learning outcomes, especially among students lagging behind their peers. In a field that is developing at dizzying speeds, innovative solutions to educational challenges are springing up everywhere. Our challenge is to make technology a driver of equity and inclusion and not a source of greater inequality of opportunity. We are working with partners worldwide to support the effective and appropriate use of educational technologies to strengthen learning.

When schools and educations systems are managed well, learning happens

Successful education reforms require good policy design, strong political commitment, and effective implementation capacity . Of course, this is extremely challenging. Many countries struggle to make efficient use of resources and very often increased education spending does not translate into more learning and improved human capital. Overcoming such challenges involves working at all levels of the system.

At the central level, ministries of education need to attract the best experts to design and implement evidence-based and country-specific programs. District or regional offices need the capacity and the tools to monitor learning and support schools. At the school level, principals need to be trained and prepared to manage and lead schools, from planning the use of resources to supervising and nurturing their teachers. However difficult, change is possible. Supported by the World Bank, public schools across Punjab in Pakistan have been part of major reforms over the past few years to address these challenges. Through improved school-level accountability by monitoring and limiting teacher and student absenteeism, and the introduction of a merit-based teacher recruitment system, where only the most talented and motivated teachers were selected, they were able to increase enrollment and retention of students and significantly improve the quality of education. "The government schools have become very good now, even better than private ones," said Mr. Ahmed, a local villager.

The World Bank, along with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the UK’s Department for International Development, is developing the Global Education Policy Dashboard . This new initiative will provide governments with a system for monitoring how their education systems are functioning, from learning data to policy plans, so they are better able to make timely and evidence-based decisions.

Education reform: The long game is worth it

In fact, it will take a generation to realize the full benefits of high-quality teachers, the effective use of technology, improved management of education systems, and engaged and prepared learners. However, global experience shows us that countries that have rapidly accelerated development and prosperity all share the common characteristic of taking education seriously and investing appropriately. As we mark the first-ever International Day of Education on January 24, we must do all we can to equip our youth with the skills to keep learning, adapt to changing realities, and thrive in an increasingly competitive global economy and a rapidly changing world of work.

The schools of the future are being built today. These are schools where all teachers have the right competencies and motivation, where technology empowers them to deliver quality learning, and where all students learn fundamental skills, including socio-emotional, and digital skills. These schools are safe and affordable to everyone and are places where children and young people learn with joy, rigor, and purpose. Governments, teachers, parents, and the international community must do their homework to realize the promise of education for all students, in every village, in every city, and in every country. 

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Why the U.S. can’t replicate Finland’s educational success

A teacher giving rulers to children of the second grade (8 years old) in a primary school in Vaasa, on their second day of school in Finland. ( OLIVIER MORIN / Getty Images)

• Finland’s success on international student assessment tests have left many wondering if the United States should adopt its education policies.
• However, Finland’s educational system developed from a culture that maintains education as a fundamental right; the United States lacks such an acknowledgement.
• Unless the United States undergoes a drastic reassessment of its social contract, meaningful education reform will likely remain out of reach.

Can the United States replicate Finland’s educational success? No.

When people triumph Finland’s education system , they enumerate a laundry list of reforms aimed at radically altering the country’s scholastic approach: no homework, no standardized tests, teacher autonomy, and children beginning compulsory school later. Finland’s success should be praised. Its education system should be studied for what empirical data it may yield.

But underlining discusses of Finland’s education system is a subtext that if the U.S. transfers these practices, it too can see its international test scores rise from the middling ranks. This view misses an important point: Finland’s educational success was driven by a culture with a strong, unifying social contract. The United States simply lacks such a social contract.

Finnish educators are among the first to make this point. As education expert Pasi Sahlberg said during a lecture to the Sandford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education :

I’m not trying to convince people that if they follow what Finland is doing, things will be good. All the education issues and reforms are done specifically to the culture and should be done locally. I’m very much aware that America is very different culturally. I’m trying to tell what we’ve been doing and use Finland as real-world evidence.

If the United States is to make education reform, it must first look to reassessing its cultural assumptions and priorities.

(Photo: Andy Blackledge/Flickr)

Education: a right or a privilege?

In 1919, Finland enshrined educational provisions as a right. Section 16 of the country’s constitution states unequivocally: “Everyone has the right to basic education free of charge” and this right guarantees citizens “the opportunity to develop themselves without being prevented by economic hardship.”

The United States’ constitution does not make such a promise to its citizens. True, the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment has established some parity within the education system, but this interpretation of the text has been held up in the courts, most famously in Brown v. Board of Education and Plyler v. Doe . It does not specifically name education as a right, nor is such a right listed anywhere else in the Constitution.

Because of this wording, the Supreme Court ruled in San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriquez that education is not a fundamental right. America’s public education system persists because of a patchwork of federal and state laws and institutions, not as a cohesive, universal goal for the society.

As Stephen Lurie , former research and policy advisor at the National Network for Safe Communities, writes, “Each of the countries ahead of the U.S. has a fundamental commitment in common, one that the [sic] America doesn’t: a constitutional, or statutory, guarantee of the right to education. By centralizing education as a key focus of the state, these countries establish baseline requirements that set the frame for policy and judicial challenges, as well as contribute to what [a] Pearson report calls a ‘culture’ of education […].”

Lurie further notes that the U.S. has turned a blind eye to such responsibilities internationally, as well. The country has yet to ratified 13 of the 18 International Human Rights Treaties , including the Convention on the Rights of the Child , which, among other statutes, mandates the right to education.

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Funding education

​In Finland, educational funding is provided by the government and is distributed much more evenly. It is tied to neither a school’s rank nor its status, but its need.

Contrary to popular belief , there are private schools in Finland, and around 2 percent of students attend one. However, Finnish private schools are a different breed. They may not charge fees, receive state funding comparable to public schools, and are prohibited from selective admissions.

This is not the case in the U.S. Another effect of San Antonio v. Rodriquez was the legal precedent that unequal school funding does not violate the Constitution. Private schools may charge tuition fees and engage in selective admission. Public schools — which are financed by state and local government, mostly through property taxes — may see their funds diverted to private schools . And while the federal government doesn’t technically fund education, it does offer grants to states, but these grants are tied to test scores and attendance records.

The result is lopsided educational funding where schools of plenty can provide more and better opportunities. A 2018 report by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights found that such inequalities “harm students subject to them” and are “fundamentally inconsistent with the American ideal of public education operating as a means to equalize life opportunity, regardless of zip code, race, economic status, or life circumstance.”

The report points directly to the San Antonio v. Rodriquez ruling as granting some states and cities the loophole necessary to continue discriminating against students of color in their funding policies. It calls for Congress to “make clear that there is a federal right to a public education.”

Teachers in Finland’s education system

In Finland, teachers receive high levels of training from much coveted educational programs. By the time they enter the classroom, most hold a master’s degree. They also continue to participate in professional development throughout their careers. The result is an educational force steeped in the science of teaching, drawn from such thinkers as John Dewey .

The United States also has very gifted, well educated teachers. The difference is cultural esteem. In Finland, teachers are highly regarded and paid very well.

“When we compare teachers to other professions in society, we compare them to lawyers or doctors or architects,” Shalberg said during his lecture. “Not as [in the United States], where they are compared to nurses or therapists, or something like that, that require lower academic training.”

In the United States, teachers aren’t disrespected, and few would think to disparage the profession in a public way. Yet, American teachers do have to struggle against the country’s zeitgeist of aggressive anti-intellectualism.

Professor Aldemaro Romero Jr. cites anti-intellectualism as persisting these all-too-familiar aspects of American discourse: tribalism, xenophobia, intolerance to dissent, fear of progress, and the invention of falsehoods to counter unwelcome facts (to name a few). All of which are counterproductive to educational practices.

“It is time for those of us involved in higher education in this country to recognize that there is a long shadow being cast on our institutions,” writes Professor Romero Jr. for the Edwardsville Intelligencer . “Because the characteristics mentioned above to fight anti-intellectualism with reason are naive. We need to become smarter in the use of media to get our message across. But what is the message? That higher education makes us richer and happier.”

A statement that, of course, holds true for all levels of education.

Education and stewardship

Finally, Finland views education as a stewardship of students. The Finnish National Agency for Education’s stated goal is “to support pupils’ growth towards humanity and ethically responsible membership of society and to provide them with the knowledge and skills needed in life.” As such, Finnish students enjoy a much more free-form education, with broader autonomy in how they approach learning as they advance.

Finnish upper-secondary students , for example, can choose between general education or vocational training, but may engage in both as needed to fulfill their scholastic and career goals. The country’s education system also limits scholastic cul-de-sacs so citizens, even adults, can reengage with education as needed in their lives.

Larger populations in the United States, in contrast, see educators not as supporters of students but the “molders of young minds,” a phrase that has an authoritative quality to it. Student deemed troublesome early in life have difficulty reengaging in formal education thanks to the U.S.’s one-shot approach . Parents insist on their right to teach children creationism , not the child’s right to learn practical, useful science. American politicians write educational goals aimed at making students competitive exam takers and workers in tomorrow’s global marketplace, not goals like self-actualization.

“Education must move beyond the current focus on training to benefit others and only incidentally benefiting youth,” writes Roger J.R. Levesque , a professor at Indiana University. “Education must enrich their lives essentially, not incidentally, by empowering them to accomplish their own ends and fulfill their potential. If this is what should be meant when we speak of educational rights, reform must take a radical turn.”

(Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

Redefining a social contract

It is true that Finland and the United States are very different countries. Finland is roughly the size of Minnesota and holds fewer people than New York City. It’s relatively homogenous when compared to the United States’ cultural heterogeneity.

But these differences aren’t the main reasons the United States can’t replicate Finland’s educational system, nor its success. That is because the American social contract simply doesn’t value education in the same way.

The next question then: Can Americans gather the massive political, cultural, and social unity it would take to reverse such a long-standing trend? Maybe, but it seems unlikely in contemporary America, and it has a history of punting such difficult discussion onto future generations.

The country began with a fissure between the Federalists versus the Anti-Federalists, a debate that enjoys a through-line down to today’s political polarization . Its productive social change continues to be shackled to religious fundamentalism. Its education system is divided among more than 50 constitutional rulebooks with different view on what constitutes necessary funding, higher education, religious restrictions, and how to assist the disabled. Heck, Alabama’s constitution still incorporates segregation as an educational mandate. (Yes, that law is trumped by federal law, but that doesn’t change the fact that ballot measures to remove the language were struck down in both 2004 and 2012.)

As for America’s virulent anti-intellectualism, David Niose sums it up succinctly: “What Americans rarely acknowledge is that many of their social problems are rooted in the rejection of critical thinking or, conversely, the glorification of the emotional and irrational.”

And this is why the current answer to the question, can the United States replicate Finland’s education system? is no. If the United States wants true, lasting, and beneficial educational reform, it will need to fully engage with its own social contract, not copy another’ country’s generous recess policy.

Why I Think All Schools Should Abolish Homework

H ow long is your child’s workweek? Thirty hours? Forty? Would it surprise you to learn that some elementary school kids have workweeks comparable to adults’ schedules? For most children, mandatory homework assignments push their workweek far beyond the school day and deep into what any other laborers would consider overtime. Even without sports or music or other school-sponsored extracurriculars, the daily homework slog keeps many students on the clock as long as lawyers, teachers, medical residents, truck drivers and other overworked adults. Is it any wonder that,deprived of the labor protections that we provide adults, our kids are suffering an epidemic of disengagement, anxiety and depression ?

With my youngest child just months away from finishing high school, I’m remembering all the needless misery and missed opportunities all three of my kids suffered because of their endless assignments. When my daughters were in middle school, I would urge them into bed before midnight and then find them clandestinely studying under the covers with a flashlight. We cut back on their activities but still found ourselves stuck in a system on overdrive, returning home from hectic days at 6 p.m. only to face hours more of homework. Now, even as a senior with a moderate course load, my son, Zak, has spent many weekends studying, finding little time for the exercise and fresh air essential to his well-being. Week after week, and without any extracurriculars, Zak logs a lot more than the 40 hours adults traditionally work each week — and with no recognition from his “bosses” that it’s too much. I can’t count the number of shared evenings, weekend outings and dinners that our family has missed and will never get back.

How much after-school time should our schools really own?

In the midst of the madness last fall, Zak said to me, “I feel like I’m working towards my death. The constant demands on my time since 5th grade are just going to continue through graduation, into college, and then into my job. It’s like I’m on an endless treadmill with no time for living.”

My spirit crumbled along with his.

Like Zak, many people are now questioning the point of putting so much demand on children and teens that they become thinly stretched and overworked. Studies have long shown that there is no academic benefit to high school homework that consumes more than a modest number of hours each week. In a study of high schoolers conducted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), researchers concluded that “after around four hours of homework per week, the additional time invested in homework has a negligible impact on performance.”

In elementary school, where we often assign overtime even to the youngest children, studies have shown there’s no academic benefit to any amount of homework at all.

Our unquestioned acceptance of homework also flies in the face of all we know about human health, brain function and learning. Brain scientists know that rest and exercise are essential to good health and real learning . Even top adult professionals in specialized fields take care to limit their work to concentrated periods of focus. A landmark study of how humans develop expertise found that elite musicians, scientists and athletes do their most productive work only about four hours per day .

Yet we continue to overwork our children, depriving them of the chance to cultivate health and learn deeply, burdening them with an imbalance of sedentary, academic tasks. American high school students , in fact, do more homework each week than their peers in the average country in the OECD, a 2014 report found.

It’s time for an uprising.

Already, small rebellions are starting. High schools in Ridgewood, N.J. , and Fairfax County, Va., among others, have banned homework over school breaks. The entire second grade at Taylor Elementary School in Arlington, Va., abolished homework this academic year. Burton Valley Elementary School in Lafayette, Calif., has eliminated homework in grades K through 4. Henry West Laboratory School , a public K-8 school in Coral Gables, Fla., eliminated mandatory, graded homework for optional assignments. One Lexington, Mass., elementary school is piloting a homework-free year, replacing it with reading for pleasure.

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Across the Atlantic, students in Spain launched a national strike against excessive assignments in November. And a second-grade teacher in Texas, made headlines this fall when she quit sending home extra work , instead urging families to “spend your evenings doing things that are proven to correlate with student success. Eat dinner as a family, read together, play outside and get your child to bed early.”

It is time that we call loudly for a clear and simple change: a workweek limit for children, counting time on the clock before and after the final bell. Why should schools extend their authority far beyond the boundaries of campus, dictating activities in our homes in the hours that belong to families? An all-out ban on after-school assignments would be optimal. Short of that, we can at least sensibly agree on a cap limiting kids to a 40-hour workweek — and fewer hours for younger children.

Resistance even to this reasonable limit will be rife. Mike Miller, an English teacher at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Va., found this out firsthand when he spearheaded a homework committee to rethink the usual approach. He had read the education research and found a forgotten policy on the county books limiting homework to two hours a night, total, including all classes. “I thought it would be a slam dunk” to put the two-hour cap firmly in place, Miller said.

But immediately, people started balking. “There was a lot of fear in the community,” Miller said. “It’s like jumping off a high dive with your kids’ future. If we reduce homework to two hours or less, is my kid really going to be okay?” In the end, the committee only agreed to a homework ban over school breaks.

Miller’s response is a great model for us all. He decided to limit assignments in his own class to 20 minutes a night (the most allowed for a student with six classes to hit the two-hour max). His students didn’t suddenly fail. Their test scores remained stable. And they started using their more breathable schedule to do more creative, thoughtful work.

That’s the way we will get to a sane work schedule for kids: by simultaneously pursuing changes big and small. Even as we collaboratively press for policy changes at the district or individual school level, all teachers can act now, as individuals, to ease the strain on overworked kids.

As parents and students, we can also organize to make homework the exception rather than the rule. We can insist that every family, teacher and student be allowed to opt out of assignments without penalty to make room for important activities, and we can seek changes that shift practice exercises and assignments into the actual school day.

We’ll know our work is done only when Zak and every other child can clock out, eat dinner, sleep well and stay healthy — the very things needed to engage and learn deeply. That’s the basic standard the law applies to working adults. Let’s do the same for our kids.

Vicki Abeles is the author of the bestseller Beyond Measure: Rescuing an Overscheduled, Overtested, Underestimated Generation, and director and producer of the documentaries “ Race to Nowhere ” and “ Beyond Measure. ”

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The Cult of Homework

America’s devotion to the practice stems in part from the fact that it’s what today’s parents and teachers grew up with themselves.

America has long had a fickle relationship with homework. A century or so ago, progressive reformers argued that it made kids unduly stressed , which later led in some cases to district-level bans on it for all grades under seventh. This anti-homework sentiment faded, though, amid mid-century fears that the U.S. was falling behind the Soviet Union (which led to more homework), only to resurface in the 1960s and ’70s, when a more open culture came to see homework as stifling play and creativity (which led to less). But this didn’t last either: In the ’80s, government researchers blamed America’s schools for its economic troubles and recommended ramping homework up once more.

The 21st century has so far been a homework-heavy era, with American teenagers now averaging about twice as much time spent on homework each day as their predecessors did in the 1990s . Even little kids are asked to bring school home with them. A 2015 study , for instance, found that kindergarteners, who researchers tend to agree shouldn’t have any take-home work, were spending about 25 minutes a night on it.

But not without pushback. As many children, not to mention their parents and teachers, are drained by their daily workload, some schools and districts are rethinking how homework should work—and some teachers are doing away with it entirely. They’re reviewing the research on homework (which, it should be noted, is contested) and concluding that it’s time to revisit the subject.

Read: My daughter’s homework is killing me

Hillsborough, California, an affluent suburb of San Francisco, is one district that has changed its ways. The district, which includes three elementary schools and a middle school, worked with teachers and convened panels of parents in order to come up with a homework policy that would allow students more unscheduled time to spend with their families or to play. In August 2017, it rolled out an updated policy, which emphasized that homework should be “meaningful” and banned due dates that fell on the day after a weekend or a break.

“The first year was a bit bumpy,” says Louann Carlomagno, the district’s superintendent. She says the adjustment was at times hard for the teachers, some of whom had been doing their job in a similar fashion for a quarter of a century. Parents’ expectations were also an issue. Carlomagno says they took some time to “realize that it was okay not to have an hour of homework for a second grader—that was new.”

Most of the way through year two, though, the policy appears to be working more smoothly. “The students do seem to be less stressed based on conversations I’ve had with parents,” Carlomagno says. It also helps that the students performed just as well on the state standardized test last year as they have in the past.

Earlier this year, the district of Somerville, Massachusetts, also rewrote its homework policy, reducing the amount of homework its elementary and middle schoolers may receive. In grades six through eight, for example, homework is capped at an hour a night and can only be assigned two to three nights a week.

Jack Schneider, an education professor at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell whose daughter attends school in Somerville, is generally pleased with the new policy. But, he says, it’s part of a bigger, worrisome pattern. “The origin for this was general parental dissatisfaction, which not surprisingly was coming from a particular demographic,” Schneider says. “Middle-class white parents tend to be more vocal about concerns about homework … They feel entitled enough to voice their opinions.”

Schneider is all for revisiting taken-for-granted practices like homework, but thinks districts need to take care to be inclusive in that process. “I hear approximately zero middle-class white parents talking about how homework done best in grades K through two actually strengthens the connection between home and school for young people and their families,” he says. Because many of these parents already feel connected to their school community, this benefit of homework can seem redundant. “They don’t need it,” Schneider says, “so they’re not advocating for it.”

That doesn’t mean, necessarily, that homework is more vital in low-income districts. In fact, there are different, but just as compelling, reasons it can be burdensome in these communities as well. Allison Wienhold, who teaches high-school Spanish in the small town of Dunkerton, Iowa, has phased out homework assignments over the past three years. Her thinking: Some of her students, she says, have little time for homework because they’re working 30 hours a week or responsible for looking after younger siblings.

As educators reduce or eliminate the homework they assign, it’s worth asking what amount and what kind of homework is best for students. It turns out that there’s some disagreement about this among researchers, who tend to fall in one of two camps.

In the first camp is Harris Cooper, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University. Cooper conducted a review of the existing research on homework in the mid-2000s , and found that, up to a point, the amount of homework students reported doing correlates with their performance on in-class tests. This correlation, the review found, was stronger for older students than for younger ones.

This conclusion is generally accepted among educators, in part because it’s compatible with “the 10-minute rule,” a rule of thumb popular among teachers suggesting that the proper amount of homework is approximately 10 minutes per night, per grade level—that is, 10 minutes a night for first graders, 20 minutes a night for second graders, and so on, up to two hours a night for high schoolers.

In Cooper’s eyes, homework isn’t overly burdensome for the typical American kid. He points to a 2014 Brookings Institution report that found “little evidence that the homework load has increased for the average student”; onerous amounts of homework, it determined, are indeed out there, but relatively rare. Moreover, the report noted that most parents think their children get the right amount of homework, and that parents who are worried about under-assigning outnumber those who are worried about over-assigning. Cooper says that those latter worries tend to come from a small number of communities with “concerns about being competitive for the most selective colleges and universities.”

According to Alfie Kohn, squarely in camp two, most of the conclusions listed in the previous three paragraphs are questionable. Kohn, the author of The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing , considers homework to be a “reliable extinguisher of curiosity,” and has several complaints with the evidence that Cooper and others cite in favor of it. Kohn notes, among other things, that Cooper’s 2006 meta-analysis doesn’t establish causation, and that its central correlation is based on children’s (potentially unreliable) self-reporting of how much time they spend doing homework. (Kohn’s prolific writing on the subject alleges numerous other methodological faults.)

In fact, other correlations make a compelling case that homework doesn’t help. Some countries whose students regularly outperform American kids on standardized tests, such as Japan and Denmark, send their kids home with less schoolwork , while students from some countries with higher homework loads than the U.S., such as Thailand and Greece, fare worse on tests. (Of course, international comparisons can be fraught because so many factors, in education systems and in societies at large, might shape students’ success.)

Kohn also takes issue with the way achievement is commonly assessed. “If all you want is to cram kids’ heads with facts for tomorrow’s tests that they’re going to forget by next week, yeah, if you give them more time and make them do the cramming at night, that could raise the scores,” he says. “But if you’re interested in kids who know how to think or enjoy learning, then homework isn’t merely ineffective, but counterproductive.”

His concern is, in a way, a philosophical one. “The practice of homework assumes that only academic growth matters, to the point that having kids work on that most of the school day isn’t enough,” Kohn says. What about homework’s effect on quality time spent with family? On long-term information retention? On critical-thinking skills? On social development? On success later in life? On happiness? The research is quiet on these questions.

Another problem is that research tends to focus on homework’s quantity rather than its quality, because the former is much easier to measure than the latter. While experts generally agree that the substance of an assignment matters greatly (and that a lot of homework is uninspiring busywork), there isn’t a catchall rule for what’s best—the answer is often specific to a certain curriculum or even an individual student.

Given that homework’s benefits are so narrowly defined (and even then, contested), it’s a bit surprising that assigning so much of it is often a classroom default, and that more isn’t done to make the homework that is assigned more enriching. A number of things are preserving this state of affairs—things that have little to do with whether homework helps students learn.

Jack Schneider, the Massachusetts parent and professor, thinks it’s important to consider the generational inertia of the practice. “The vast majority of parents of public-school students themselves are graduates of the public education system,” he says. “Therefore, their views of what is legitimate have been shaped already by the system that they would ostensibly be critiquing.” In other words, many parents’ own history with homework might lead them to expect the same for their children, and anything less is often taken as an indicator that a school or a teacher isn’t rigorous enough. (This dovetails with—and complicates—the finding that most parents think their children have the right amount of homework.)

Barbara Stengel, an education professor at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College, brought up two developments in the educational system that might be keeping homework rote and unexciting. The first is the importance placed in the past few decades on standardized testing, which looms over many public-school classroom decisions and frequently discourages teachers from trying out more creative homework assignments. “They could do it, but they’re afraid to do it, because they’re getting pressure every day about test scores,” Stengel says.

Second, she notes that the profession of teaching, with its relatively low wages and lack of autonomy, struggles to attract and support some of the people who might reimagine homework, as well as other aspects of education. “Part of why we get less interesting homework is because some of the people who would really have pushed the limits of that are no longer in teaching,” she says.

“In general, we have no imagination when it comes to homework,” Stengel says. She wishes teachers had the time and resources to remake homework into something that actually engages students. “If we had kids reading—anything, the sports page, anything that they’re able to read—that’s the best single thing. If we had kids going to the zoo, if we had kids going to parks after school, if we had them doing all of those things, their test scores would improve. But they’re not. They’re going home and doing homework that is not expanding what they think about.”

“Exploratory” is one word Mike Simpson used when describing the types of homework he’d like his students to undertake. Simpson is the head of the Stone Independent School, a tiny private high school in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, that opened in 2017. “We were lucky to start a school a year and a half ago,” Simpson says, “so it’s been easy to say we aren’t going to assign worksheets, we aren’t going assign regurgitative problem sets.” For instance, a half-dozen students recently built a 25-foot trebuchet on campus.

Simpson says he thinks it’s a shame that the things students have to do at home are often the least fulfilling parts of schooling: “When our students can’t make the connection between the work they’re doing at 11 o’clock at night on a Tuesday to the way they want their lives to be, I think we begin to lose the plot.”

When I talked with other teachers who did homework makeovers in their classrooms, I heard few regrets. Brandy Young, a second-grade teacher in Joshua, Texas, stopped assigning take-home packets of worksheets three years ago, and instead started asking her students to do 20 minutes of pleasure reading a night. She says she’s pleased with the results, but she’s noticed something funny. “Some kids,” she says, “really do like homework.” She’s started putting out a bucket of it for students to draw from voluntarily—whether because they want an additional challenge or something to pass the time at home.

Chris Bronke, a high-school English teacher in the Chicago suburb of Downers Grove, told me something similar. This school year, he eliminated homework for his class of freshmen, and now mostly lets students study on their own or in small groups during class time. It’s usually up to them what they work on each day, and Bronke has been impressed by how they’ve managed their time.

In fact, some of them willingly spend time on assignments at home, whether because they’re particularly engaged, because they prefer to do some deeper thinking outside school, or because they needed to spend time in class that day preparing for, say, a biology test the following period. “They’re making meaningful decisions about their time that I don’t think education really ever gives students the experience, nor the practice, of doing,” Bronke said.

The typical prescription offered by those overwhelmed with homework is to assign less of it—to subtract. But perhaps a more useful approach, for many classrooms, would be to create homework only when teachers and students believe it’s actually needed to further the learning that takes place in class—to start with nothing, and add as necessary.

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Homework Around the World

January 12, 2017 

The verdict is in, and when it comes to homework, it appears that less is more. Research shows that several of the countries scoring top in the world for education, surprisingly dole out the least amount of homework to their students.

South Korea leads the world in education, and on average, students receive less than 3 hours of homework per week.

On the other hand, the United States leads the charge with the most money spent on education per student and students receive a significantly greater amount of homework, but clocks in at number 17 in the world for education. So, why the disparity?

Let’s take a look at this infographic to see how homework and different types of education systems factor into academic rankings around the world.

Right to Education : Situation around the world

Situation of children’s right to education worldwide.

Today, education remains an inaccessible right for millions of children around the world. More than 72 million children of primary education age are not in school and 759 million adults are illiterate and do not have the awareness necessary to improve both their living conditions and those of their children.

Causes of lack of education

Marginalisation and poverty.

For many children who still do not have access to education, it is notable because of persisting inequality and marginalization.

In developing and developed countries alike, children do not have access to basic education because of inequalities that originate in sex, health and cultural identity (ethnic origin, language, religion). These children find themselves on the margins of the education system and do not benefit from learning that is vital to their intellectual and social development.

Undeniably, many children from disadvantaged backgrounds are forced to abandon their education due to health problems related to malnutrition or in order to work and provide support for the family.

Financial deficit of developing countries

Universal primary education is a major issue and a sizeable problem for many states.

Equally, a lack of financial resources has an effect on the quality of teaching. Teachers do not benefit from basic teacher training and schools, of which there are not enough, have oversized classes.

This overflow leads to classes where many different educational levels are forced together which does not allow each individual child to benefit from an education adapted to their needs and abilities. As a result, the drop-out rate and education failure remain high.

Overview of the right to education worldwide

Most affected regions..

As a result of poverty and marginalization, more than 72 million children around the world remain unschooled.

Sub-Saharan Africa is the most affected area with over 32 million children of primary school age remaining uneducated. Central and Eastern Asia, as well as the Pacific, are also severely affected by this problem with more than 27 million uneducated children.

Additionally, these regions must also solve continuing problems of educational poverty (a child in education for less than 4 years) and extreme educational poverty (a child in education for less than 2 years).

Essentially this concerns Sub-Saharan Africa where more than half of children receive an education for less than 4 years. In certain countries, such as Somalia and Burkina Faso, more than 50% of children receive an education for a period less than 2 years.

The lack of schooling and poor education have negative effects on the population and country.  The children leave school without having acquired the basics, which greatly impedes the social and economic development of these countries.

Inequality between girls and boys: the education of girls in jeopardy

Today, it is girls who have the least access to education. They make up more than 54% of the non-schooled population in the world.

This problem occurs most frequently in the Arab States, in central Asia and in Southern and Western Asia and is principally explained by the cultural and traditional privileged treatment given to males. Girls are destined to work in the family home, whereas boys are entitled to receive an education.

In sub-Saharan Africa, over 12 million girls are at risk of never receiving an education. In Yemen, it is more than 80% of girls who will never have the opportunity to go to school. Even more alarming, certain countries such as Afghanistan or Somalia make no effort to reduce the gap between girls and boys with regard to education.

Although many developing countries may congratulate themselves on dramatically reducing inequality between girls and boys in education, a lot of effort is still needed in order to achieve a universal primary education.

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Here's how homework differs around the world

The INSIDER Summary:

• The infographic below shows how education systems around the world differ. • It compares the amount of homework given per week, how much is spent on education, and how many days of school there is per week in countries around the world. • South Korea's education system was ranked number one.

More homework doesn't necessarily mean a better education.

According to the infographic below, created by Ozicare Insurance, the countries that offer the best education systems around the world don't always dole out piles of homework to students.

Students in Italy — whose education system ranked relatively low on the 2014 Pearson review — complete about 8.1 hours of homework per week, while students in South Korea — whose education system ranked number one in the world on the 2014 Pearson review— only spend 2.9 hours on homework weekly.

Keep scrolling to find out more about education across the globe.

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Watch: 3 reasons why North and South Korean reunification is unlikely

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• The Highlight

Nobody knows what the point of homework is

The homework wars are back.

by Jacob Sweet

As the Covid-19 pandemic began and students logged into their remote classrooms, all work, in effect, became homework. But whether or not students could complete it at home varied. For some, schoolwork became public-library work or McDonald’s-parking-lot work.

Luis Torres, the principal of PS 55, a predominantly low-income community elementary school in the south Bronx, told me that his school secured Chromebooks for students early in the pandemic only to learn that some lived in shelters that blocked wifi for security reasons. Others, who lived in housing projects with poor internet reception, did their schoolwork in laundromats.

According to a 2021 Pew survey , 25 percent of lower-income parents said their children, at some point, were unable to complete their schoolwork because they couldn’t access a computer at home; that number for upper-income parents was 2 percent.

The issues with remote learning in March 2020 were new. But they highlighted a divide that had been there all along in another form: homework. And even long after schools have resumed in-person classes, the pandemic’s effects on homework have lingered.

Over the past three years, in response to concerns about equity, schools across the country, including in Sacramento, Los Angeles , San Diego , and Clark County, Nevada , made permanent changes to their homework policies that restricted how much homework could be given and how it could be graded after in-person learning resumed.

Three years into the pandemic, as districts and teachers reckon with Covid-era overhauls of teaching and learning, schools are still reconsidering the purpose and place of homework. Whether relaxing homework expectations helps level the playing field between students or harms them by decreasing rigor is a divisive issue without conclusive evidence on either side, echoing other debates in education like the elimination of standardized test scores from some colleges’ admissions processes.

I first began to wonder if the homework abolition movement made sense after speaking with teachers in some Massachusetts public schools, who argued that rather than help disadvantaged kids, stringent homework restrictions communicated an attitude of low expectations. One, an English teacher, said she felt the school had “just given up” on trying to get the students to do work; another argued that restrictions that prohibit teachers from assigning take-home work that doesn’t begin in class made it difficult to get through the foreign-language curriculum. Teachers in other districts have raised formal concerns about homework abolition’s ability to close gaps among students rather than widening them.

Many education experts share this view. Harris Cooper, a professor emeritus of psychology at Duke who has studied homework efficacy, likened homework abolition to “playing to the lowest common denominator.”

But as I learned after talking to a variety of stakeholders — from homework researchers to policymakers to parents of schoolchildren — whether to abolish homework probably isn’t the right question. More important is what kind of work students are sent home with and where they can complete it. Chances are, if schools think more deeply about giving constructive work, time spent on homework will come down regardless.

There’s no consensus on whether homework works

The rise of the no-homework movement during the Covid-19 pandemic tapped into long-running disagreements over homework’s impact on students. The purpose and effectiveness of homework have been disputed for well over a century. In 1901, for instance, California banned homework for students up to age 15, and limited it for older students, over concerns that it endangered children’s mental and physical health. The newest iteration of the anti-homework argument contends that the current practice punishes students who lack support and rewards those with more resources, reinforcing the “myth of meritocracy.”

But there is still no research consensus on homework’s effectiveness; no one can seem to agree on what the right metrics are. Much of the debate relies on anecdotes, intuition, or speculation.

Researchers disagree even on how much research exists on the value of homework. Kathleen Budge, the co-author of Turning High-Poverty Schools Into High-Performing Schools and a professor at Boise State, told me that homework “has been greatly researched.” Denise Pope, a Stanford lecturer and leader of the education nonprofit Challenge Success, said, “It’s not a highly researched area because of some of the methodological problems.”

Experts who are more sympathetic to take-home assignments generally support the “10-minute rule,” a framework that estimates the ideal amount of homework on any given night by multiplying the student’s grade by 10 minutes. (A ninth grader, for example, would have about 90 minutes of work a night.) Homework proponents argue that while it is difficult to design randomized control studies to test homework’s effectiveness, the vast majority of existing studies show a strong positive correlation between homework and high academic achievement for middle and high school students. Prominent critics of homework argue that these correlational studies are unreliable and point to studies that suggest a neutral or negative effect on student performance. Both agree there is little to no evidence for homework’s effectiveness at an elementary school level, though proponents often argue that it builds constructive habits for the future.

For anyone who remembers homework assignments from both good and bad teachers, this fundamental disagreement might not be surprising. Some homework is pointless and frustrating to complete. Every week during my senior year of high school, I had to analyze a poem for English and decorate it with images found on Google; my most distinct memory from that class is receiving a demoralizing 25-point deduction because I failed to present my analysis on a poster board. Other assignments really do help students learn: After making an adapted version of Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book for a ninth grade history project, I was inspired to check out from the library and read a biography of the Chinese ruler.

For homework opponents, the first example is more likely to resonate. “We’re all familiar with the negative effects of homework: stress, exhaustion, family conflict, less time for other activities, diminished interest in learning,” Alfie Kohn, author of The Homework Myth, which challenges common justifications for homework, told me in an email. “And these effects may be most pronounced among low-income students.” Kohn believes that schools should make permanent any moratoria implemented during the pandemic, arguing that there are no positives at all to outweigh homework’s downsides. Recent studies , he argues , show the benefits may not even materialize during high school.

In the Marlborough Public Schools, a suburban district 45 minutes west of Boston, school policy committee chair Katherine Hennessy described getting kids to complete their homework during remote education as “a challenge, to say the least.” Teachers found that students who spent all day on their computers didn’t want to spend more time online when the day was over. So, for a few months, the school relaxed the usual practice and teachers slashed the quantity of nightly homework.

Online learning made the preexisting divides between students more apparent, she said. Many students, even during normal circumstances, lacked resources to keep them on track and focused on completing take-home assignments. Though Marlborough Schools is more affluent than PS 55, Hennessy said many students had parents whose work schedules left them unable to provide homework help in the evenings. The experience tracked with a common divide in the country between children of different socioeconomic backgrounds.

So in October 2021, months after the homework reduction began, the Marlborough committee made a change to the district’s policy. While teachers could still give homework, the assignments had to begin as classwork. And though teachers could acknowledge homework completion in a student’s participation grade, they couldn’t count homework as its own grading category. “Rigorous learning in the classroom does not mean that that classwork must be assigned every night,” the policy stated . “Extensions of class work is not to be used to teach new content or as a form of punishment.”

Canceling homework might not do anything for the achievement gap

The critiques of homework are valid as far as they go, but at a certain point, arguments against homework can defy the commonsense idea that to retain what they’re learning, students need to practice it.

“Doesn’t a kid become a better reader if he reads more? Doesn’t a kid learn his math facts better if he practices them?” said Cathy Vatterott, an education researcher and professor emeritus at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. After decades of research, she said it’s still hard to isolate the value of homework, but that doesn’t mean it should be abandoned.

Blanket vilification of homework can also conflate the unique challenges facing disadvantaged students as compared to affluent ones, which could have different solutions. “The kids in the low-income schools are being hurt because they’re being graded, unfairly, on time they just don’t have to do this stuff,” Pope told me. “And they’re still being held accountable for turning in assignments, whether they’re meaningful or not.” On the other side, “Palo Alto kids” — students in Silicon Valley’s stereotypically pressure-cooker public schools — “are just bombarded and overloaded and trying to stay above water.”

Merely getting rid of homework doesn’t solve either problem. The United States already has the second-highest disparity among OECD (the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) nations between time spent on homework by students of high and low socioeconomic status — a difference of more than three hours, said Janine Bempechat, clinical professor at Boston University and author of No More Mindless Homework .

When she interviewed teachers in Boston-area schools that had cut homework before the pandemic, Bempechat told me, “What they saw immediately was parents who could afford it immediately enrolled their children in the Russian School of Mathematics,” a math-enrichment program whose tuition ranges from $140 to about $400 a month. Getting rid of homework “does nothing for equity; it increases the opportunity gap between wealthier and less wealthy families,” she said. “That solution troubles me because it’s no solution at all.”

A group of teachers at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia, made the same point after the school district proposed an overhaul of its homework policies, including removing penalties for missing homework deadlines, allowing unlimited retakes, and prohibiting grading of homework.

“Given the emphasis on equity in today’s education systems,” they wrote in a letter to the school board, “we believe that some of the proposed changes will actually have a detrimental impact towards achieving this goal. Families that have means could still provide challenging and engaging academic experiences for their children and will continue to do so, especially if their children are not experiencing expected rigor in the classroom.” At a school where more than a third of students are low-income, the teachers argued, the policies would prompt students “to expect the least of themselves in terms of effort, results, and responsibility.”

Not all homework is created equal

Despite their opposing sides in the homework wars, most of the researchers I spoke to made a lot of the same points. Both Bempechat and Pope were quick to bring up how parents and schools confuse rigor with workload, treating the volume of assignments as a proxy for quality of learning. Bempechat, who is known for defending homework, has written extensively about how plenty of it lacks clear purpose, requires the purchasing of unnecessary supplies, and takes longer than it needs to. Likewise, when Pope instructs graduate-level classes on curriculum, she asks her students to think about the larger purpose they’re trying to achieve with homework: If they can get the job done in the classroom, there’s no point in sending home more work.

At its best, pandemic-era teaching facilitated that last approach. Honolulu-based teacher Christina Torres Cawdery told me that, early in the pandemic, she often had a cohort of kids in her classroom for four hours straight, as her school tried to avoid too much commingling. She couldn’t lecture for four hours, so she gave the students plenty of time to complete independent and project-based work. At the end of most school days, she didn’t feel the need to send them home with more to do.

A similar limited-homework philosophy worked at a public middle school in Chelsea, Massachusetts. A couple of teachers there turned as much class as possible into an opportunity for small-group practice, allowing kids to work on problems that traditionally would be assigned for homework, Jessica Flick, a math coach who leads department meetings at the school, told me. It was inspired by a philosophy pioneered by Simon Fraser University professor Peter Liljedahl, whose influential book Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics reframes homework as “check-your-understanding questions” rather than as compulsory work. Last year, Flick found that the two eighth grade classes whose teachers adopted this strategy performed the best on state tests, and this year, she has encouraged other teachers to implement it.

Teachers know that plenty of homework is tedious and unproductive. Jeannemarie Dawson De Quiroz, who has taught for more than 20 years in low-income Boston and Los Angeles pilot and charter schools, says that in her first years on the job she frequently assigned “drill and kill” tasks and questions that she now feels unfairly stumped students. She said designing good homework wasn’t part of her teaching programs, nor was it meaningfully discussed in professional development. With more experience, she turned as much class time as she could into practice time and limited what she sent home.

“The thing about homework that’s sticky is that not all homework is created equal,” says Jill Harrison Berg, a former teacher and the author of Uprooting Instructional Inequity . “Some homework is a genuine waste of time and requires lots of resources for no good reason. And other homework is really useful.”

Cutting homework has to be part of a larger strategy

The takeaways are clear: Schools can make cuts to homework, but those cuts should be part of a strategy to improve the quality of education for all students. If the point of homework was to provide more practice, districts should think about how students can make it up during class — or offer time during or after school for students to seek help from teachers. If it was to move the curriculum along, it’s worth considering whether strategies like Liljedahl’s can get more done in less time.

Some of the best thinking around effective assignments comes from those most critical of the current practice. Denise Pope proposes that, before assigning homework, teachers should consider whether students understand the purpose of the work and whether they can do it without help. If teachers think it’s something that can’t be done in class, they should be mindful of how much time it should take and the feedback they should provide. It’s questions like these that De Quiroz considered before reducing the volume of work she sent home.

More than a year after the new homework policy began in Marlborough, Hennessy still hears from parents who incorrectly “think homework isn’t happening” despite repeated assurances that kids still can receive work. She thinks part of the reason is that education has changed over the years. “I think what we’re trying to do is establish that homework may be an element of educating students,” she told me. “But it may not be what parents think of as what they grew up with. ... It’s going to need to adapt, per the teaching and the curriculum, and how it’s being delivered in each classroom.”

For the policy to work, faculty, parents, and students will all have to buy into a shared vision of what school ought to look like. The district is working on it — in November, it hosted and uploaded to YouTube a round-table discussion on homework between district administrators — but considering the sustained confusion, the path ahead seems difficult.

When I asked Luis Torres about whether he thought homework serves a useful part in PS 55’s curriculum, he said yes, of course it was — despite the effort and money it takes to keep the school open after hours to help them do it. “The children need the opportunity to practice,” he said. “If you don’t give them opportunities to practice what they learn, they’re going to forget.” But Torres doesn’t care if the work is done at home. The school stays open until around 6 pm on weekdays, even during breaks. Tutors through New York City’s Department of Youth and Community Development programs help kids with work after school so they don’t need to take it with them.

As schools weigh the purpose of homework in an unequal world, it’s tempting to dispose of a practice that presents real, practical problems to students across the country. But getting rid of homework is unlikely to do much good on its own. Before cutting it, it’s worth thinking about what good assignments are meant to do in the first place. It’s crucial that students from all socioeconomic backgrounds tackle complex quantitative problems and hone their reading and writing skills. It’s less important that the work comes home with them.

Jacob Sweet is a freelance writer in Somerville, Massachusetts. He is a frequent contributor to the New Yorker, among other publications.

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Prosperous countries that allocate less homework to students

Reflecting old days in school, and one cannot forget the dramas with homework assignments that we did every evening after all day in school learning. We could struggle with sleep and homework on the study table. During playtime, school days were excellent, and we longed never to end, but when it came to homework, the school was not so excited and fun. However, there are countries out there who offer students less or no homework, and they are successful. Yes, you heard me right, successful and offered fewer homework assignments. Is the offering of less homework, the secret to success? What are their homework solutions ? In this article, we explore the countries that provide less homework and are thriving.

On top of the list of successful countries that offer less homework and is Finland. Finland is a European country that prides itself on offering 2.8 hours of assignments per week, long holiday vacations, and short school days. Besides, Finnish children are not obligated to begin school before they are seven years of age that sounds weird, child staying at home until the age of seven. Despite all these, the Finnish education system equips her students with requisite skills and knowledge, and they come at the top of matters examinations globally. For example, in science and mathematics knowledge, Finnish students rank sixth in the entire world. According to Finnish people, their education system works on absolute trust. Instead of overloading students with homework assignments at home, parents have faith that teachers will provide their children with the required education while they are in school. However, studies have proven that homework translates to better results, but the Finnish education system is proofing otherwise.

South Korea

Similar to Finland, South Korea allocate their students an average of 2.9 hours of assignments per week. Despite South Korea allocating relatively less homework per week, South Korea is positioned two in the entire world in their reading knowledge. South Korean schools had no structure until the last few years when South Koreans restructured their education system, and it became a significant part of their country’s development. South Korean restructured education system seeks to provide education to everyone regardless of his or her background. Though South Korean students rank at the top globally and enjoy fewer homework assignments, many questions linger as to whether they are successful. Instead of South Korean schools allocating more homework assignments to students, they pay close attention to constant testing and always pressure students.

The Japanese education system is the most unique, globally. Instead of teachers utilizing their knowledge to impart knowledge and skills to students, they teach them how to use internet resources to find answers to their problems. On average Japanese schools, offer her students 3.8 hours of assignments per week. Japanese students do not engage in brainwork. Instead, schools throughout the country do not hire janitors. Students themselves keep their buildings tidy and clean. Therefore, while schools in Japan do not overload students with homework, they prepare for other skills they will require to succeed in life.

Homework is a topic that draws varied opinions amongst people. Others believe that homework is the best strategy for students to learn, while others believe that students should learn everything in school without homework assignments. Finally, the successful countries that offer less homework have demonstrated that it is possible to succeed without giving students extra work after school.

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No Homework, No Board Exams For Children In Finland; A Cue For India

With an education system which is vastly different from that of us, uk and other european countries, finland has been at the top of the game for decades now. the education system in finland allow students autonomy and encourage creative play instead of pitting students in a competitive race for top grades..

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What Country Has No Homework

Homework can be a lifelong nightmare for students, while others find it to be a necessary part of the educative process. Nonetheless, some countries have abolished the requirement of homework, while others have adopted it.

Table of Contents

This article will discuss which country has abolished homework and the reasoning behind such decision.

Overview of Homework in Different Countries

The opinion on homework is controversial. In some cases, students develop a sense of responsibility, organization, and improved grades by doing homework.

On the other hand, too much or too little homework can be a source of stress for students and parents, detracting from the quality of life. The amount of homework assigned and the amount of hours spent on it greatly vary from country to country. Students in Asian countries, like Japan, South Korea, and China, are amongst those who spend the most time on homework.

On the other hand, countries such as Finland and Denmark assign less homework, but still allow students to get enough practice on their academic skills to excel in exams.

History of Homework in Finland

Finland is a country located in the Nordic region known for its educational advancements and standards. During the eighties, Finland started an education reform. Since then, the country has abolished mandatory homework and included the practice of less is more into their school system.

Rather than assigning students hours of homework, teachers prefer to give more meaningful and creative tasks and projects. No longer must students worry about homework, as students can dedicate their time to leisure and extra-curricular activities while having the same grade level as students in countries where homework is mandatory.

Finns have a culture of knowing how to read, rather than what to read, and classroom activities and short exercises provide enough practice for students.

The Effects of Abolishing Homework

The decision to abolish homework has proved to be a successful and beneficial plan for the future of Finland. Students have more time to have a balanced life and to pursue activities, such as music, team sports, and part-time jobs.

Also, the decision gives more time and space to students to focus more on their studies and projects. For example, Finland implements a philosophy known as de-emphasis of testing. This means that the focus is not entirely placed on top results, but rather in the acquisition of knowledge.

Therefore, instead of focusing solely on grades, the emphasis is placed on learning how to think and how to learn.

International Recognition of Finland’s System

Finland has a universal, publicly funded educational system that is completely free and voluntary for students between the ages of 6 and 1 Other countries, such as Sweden and Denmark, follow the Finnish system and accomplishment of de-emphasizing on the testing and exam scores.

The policy of no-homework has even been recognized internationally. Books, such as The World’s Best Education System by Melinda Schawacher, and Pasi Silander’s book, The Education Revolution in Finland have given Finland’s system credit.

Criticisms of Abolishing Homework

Although Finland has achieved success with its system and educational advancements, there still remain some critics to the decision to abolish homework. For example, opponents argue that students are not compelled to sit down and study and that this decision allows students to succumb to distraction.

Moreover, some may argue that students develop better time management skills when managing their own time and dedicating it to homework; this way, they learn how to structure their studies and better manage their academic life.

Alternative Homework Policies

Not all countries are ready or willing to completely abolish homework. Therefore, other policy suggestions have been made to reduce the amount of homework assigned.

For example, in the United States, the Homework Policy Council suggests limiting homework to 10 minutes per grade level. In Brazil, the Justa Causa movement urges for the reduction of homework for primary school students. Also, in some countries, parents have started movements to reduce the number of hours spent on homework.

The Pros and Cons of Homework

Overall, some students receive beneficial results from doing homework while others find it to be a stressful obligation. Homework has both pros and cons, as it allows students to acquire more knowledge and practice, as well as improve their grades, but it also has shortcomings, as it takes away from the quality of life and social life of students.

The education system ultimately needs to address the needs of the students and address the proper amount and type of homework. Too much or too little homework can be a source of stress.

In conclusion, Finland has revolutionized the use of less is more in the educational system by abolishing homework. This decision has proven to be beneficial for Finland’s students, as they can dedicate their time to leisure and have more potential to excel academically.

The decision to abolish homework has also been recognized worldwide, as other countries have followed the Finnish system with similar results. Nonetheless, other countries have adopted alternative homework policies in order to prevent the burden of too much homework on students. Finland’s no-homework policy has pros and cons, from allowing the students to dedicate their free time to other activities, to not allowing the students to better manage their own learning process.

Despite the criticism, the decision to abolish homework has been a success for the Finnish; therefore, it is worth considering for other countries as well.

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The Countries Where Kids Do The Most Homework

Does your kid complain about endless hours of homework? If you live in Italy , those complaints could reach fever-pitch! According to research conducted by the OECD, 15-year old children in Italy have to contend with nearly 9 hours of homework per week - more than anywhere else in the world. Irish children have the second highest after-school workload - just over 7 hours each week. In the United States , about 6.1 hours of a 15-year old's week are sacrificed for the sake of homework. In Asia, children have very little to complain about. Japanese students have to deal with 3.8 hours of homework per week on average while in South Korea, it's just 2.9 hours.

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This chart shows hours of homework per week in selected countries.

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