SINGAPORE: A Singaporean student took to social media on Wednesday (Sept 3) to air his grievances about the excessive holiday homework assigned by his teachers during the September break.
Posting on r/SGexams, an online Reddit forum, the student explained that their teachers assigned ‘two sets of papers for each subject’ just two days before the holidays.
This sudden and substantial increase in homework shocked him and many of his classmates, as they had already meticulously prepared their revision plans for the holidays.
“It only reflects how bad their time management and planning skills are. Normally, they don’t give us so much homework but wait until we have the most revisions to do, and then they think it’s the best time to dump everything on us.
Like, come on, how is this fair to us?” he lamented.
The student expressed that the massive amount of unfinished homework was demotivating, as it felt “practically impossible” to complete it all within a week. “Do they not have basic empathy? I understand it’s the last stretch, but what have they been doing?” he asked.
He then suggested that it would have been more considerate if the teachers had distributed the homework more evenly throughout the regular weeks rather than overwhelming students during their busiest period.
“I cannot stress this enough but this is just teachers not even caring for their students. Some won’t even complete their revision goals anymore because of mistakes on their part,” he said.
“Most teachers think only their subject exists, and we have a lot of time.”
In the discussion thread, other students chimed in with similar complaints, sharing their own experiences of last-minute homework dumps and the stress it caused.
Many agreed that the timing of the assignments seemed poorly planned and expressed frustration over how it affected their ability to balance study and rest during the break.
One student said, “PREACH, I’m literally going through that now! My motivation is at an all-time low, and now I don’t even feel like revising.” Another remarked, “A school holiday with homework is merely a study break.”
A third student expressed, “For me if I think it’s useless and they don’t mark it, I won’t do it. But if they are willing to mark it, then I am willing to do it. It seems most teachers think only their subject exists, and we have a lot of time.”
In response to the criticism, one teacher joined the discussion and explained that many of them had actually been reluctant to assign additional holiday homework because they knew it wasn’t often taken seriously by students and could be seen as futile.
She also mentioned that the push for more homework often came from higher-ups who believed in the outdated notion that more homework equals more learning.
She added, “If you wanna hate, hate the head of department (HOD). We suffer alongside the children. We are human, too. We also wanna spend time with our long-suffering families.”
Featured image by Depositphotos