The local education bureau has announced a new policy that requires parents to provide regular feedback on the performance of their children’s teachers at school effective as of Apr 1.
This move comes after increasing concerns by parents who say that teachers are enjoying their time off with the closure of many schools due to the Covid-20 situation. For schools who have switched to online learning, parents say that the teachers disappear from the screen for extended periods of time and don’t always call on every kid in the class.
One parent we spoke to said, “We have been attending online classes for days now, and the class teacher has not once called on my daughter, even though I raised her hand for her because she’s 8 months old.” The class in question was an online Jimboree class.
The new policy seeks to address the problem of teacher performance by asking parents to give honest and critical feedback to the schools on a weekly basis. This is accomplished by filling out a 10-page survey with questions such as “How many times does the teacher smile at your child?” and “Does your child’s teacher take note of how often they go to the bathroom?” The survey will be sent out Friday via Seesow, and a response from both parents is required by midnight of Sunday the same week.
To ensure that schools take the feedback seriously, the bureau will issue every school with a Parent Feedback Coordinator (PFC), whose job it is to collect said feedback and routinely check that the school’s teachers improve based on it.
We were lucky enough to speak with one newly recruited PFC, whose previous employment was as a traffic control warden at the junction of Siheqiao and Tuanjiehu, who told us, “I’m so excited for this job! Last time, I had to give very loud feedback to those pedestrians who tried to jaywalk. Now I will give the parents’ feedback very loudly to the school as well!” This PFC has been assigned to an Experimental High School in North Dongzhimen.
The new policy will take effect immediately.
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