BRIGHT PROJECT

China’s Ministry of Education (MOE) is calling for schools to add more outdoor activities to their curriculum in an effort to stem the rising tide of myopia rates among minors.

According to the Ministry, over half of children and adolescents in China suffer from nearsightedness as of 2019—one of the highest myopia rates worldwide.Following the MOE’s recommendation, a Xi’an primary school has introduced a “park lesson” period to its spring semester curriculum where teachers give lessons orally at a nearby park, to minimize students’ screen and reading time.

However, urban families living in areas with limited park space worry about how their schools can implement the project.“The outdoor space of the school is rather confined,” Wang Lin, a mother of a fourth grader in Shanghai, told news website Sixth Tone, “so students from different grades have to take turns to do activities here.”