Life-based Reasons Why Homework Should Be Banned

Do students of secondary school in Kazakhstan really have strong reasons for not doing homework given at school?

Homework is studying that students do at home to prepare for school. It is considered as a tool of reinforcing the knowledge gained in classroom. However, in most cases work given by teachers at school is considered to be useless and consequently left undone. As the result of the 2007 MetLife Survey of the American Teacher only This issue is common for most countries, including Kazakhstan: according to the research of Ministry of Education and Science Republic of Kazakhstan, 48% of students don’t do home tasks given at school. This clearly justifies the existence of the problem. Therefore, individuals, governments and international organizations should pay attention and take some actions to handle it. 

Reasons of homework failure have been debated for a long time, because there are many factors that influence the development of the issue. According to Bowman, main causes of the problem are:

• Homework is time-consuming
• Students don’t have a homework plan
• Value of homework is misunderstood
• Feedback is not always provided

Actually, homework assignments have many positive aspects, because of which it is still considered as a basic and efficient tool of increasing the academic performance of the student in majority countries. Doing homework increases academic achievement, develops time-management skills, teaches students how to problem solve. Moreover, homework assignments also help to identify your strengths and weaknesses, which you can work on and hence, increase your academic performance. Homework increases student’s skill proficiency, provides opportunities for students to identify and learn to use resources, such as the library, Internet, reference books, and other community resources, teaches how to apply previously learned skills to new situations or other areas of interest.

However, there are some negative aspects of homework assignments. Time is considered to be a most important factor that disputes homework debate. It becomes a big problem for students, who desire to participate in afterschool activities, do hobbies or just relax and spend time with their families and friends, because time-constraints do not allow them to do everything at once, which means that they have to sacrifice everything in order to be prepared for the lesson. That’s why for students, who have already spent hours at school gaining knowledge and tons of new information, doing homework become less prior thing than his/her personal interests. Doing home tasks also is hazardous for youngster’s health. It encourages a sedentary lifestyle, which might lead to increased obesity levels in future. Furthermore, exercising days and nights all over the place leads to nervous exhaustion and mental diseases. Another worth reminding thing is that in most cases homework negatively affects student’s academic performance, though it is intended to opposite. Here, amount of homework and time spent on completing it are important components of high academic achievements. For example, pupils of the age of 15 in Finland, country which is recognized as a leader in education quality, spend 2.8 hours per week doing homework, whereas in Kazakhstan this mark reaches 8.8 hours per week.

For decades, the homework standard has been a “10-minute rule,” which recommends a daily maximum of 10 minutes of homework per grade level. Second graders, for example, should do about 20 minutes of homework each night. High school seniors should complete about two hours of homework each night. The National PTA and the National Education Association both support that guideline.