The case for banning homework so kids can have a life

Irish President Michael D Higgins made global headlines last week by calling for a ban on homework, arguing students would benefit more from spending their after-school hours developing friendships and playing.

“It should get finished at school [and] people should be able to use their time for other creative things,” Higgins told Irish radio station RTE. However, Higgins doesn’t have the power to change Ireland’s education policies, and Education Minister Norma Foley has vowed to leave the decision up to principals.

As most Australian students return to school this week, it’s high time for a debate about the merits of homework. Should Australia consign it to the proverbial dog’s bowl for good?

Homework gets a D-

There is little correlation between global test scores and the time students spend studying at home. Fifteen-year-old students from Shanghai (who do a whopping 14 hours of homework a week on average) and Singapore (seven hours) score higher than Australia (six hours, one more than the OECD average) on tests by the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). But so do Finnish students, who spend fewer than three hours on homework each week.

This is because the educational benefits of homework are small, according to academic studies, and only kick in once students hit their mid-teens.

Australian academics Richard Walker and Mike Horsley, authors of the book Reforming Homework, conclude: “Homework has no benefit for children in the early years of primary school, negligible benefits for children in the later years of primary school, weak benefits for junior high school students and reasonable benefits for senior high school students.”

Why? Recent UK research suggests younger children are often “[unable] to complete this homework without the support provided by teachers and the school”.

Even for older students, only a small amount of homework is beneficial. The OECD surmises that “after around four hours of homework per week, the additional time invested … has a negligible impact on performance”.

Relying on work outside the classroom also exacerbates educational inequality, as students from disadvantaged backgrounds are less likely to receive help from family members who may be out working or busy with caring responsibilities. Just like increasing private and public school fees, homework shunts more of the burden of education on to individual families, leaving children more reliant on their parents’ resources.

Long hours on the tools crayons

There is also a broader question: why, when we (theoretically) limit the adult work week to 38 hours, do we think it’s acceptable for kids to work 41 hours a week on average (35 hours in school, six hours of homework)? When adults work such hours, they’re usually meant to be paid overtime (again, theoretically).

Homework normalises a culture of working late hours into the night, which conditions students to expect an unhealthy lack of boundaries in their working lives. Spending time with family and friends, keeping active and exploring hobbies and creative pursuits are relegated to afterthoughts. This is especially the case for high-achieving students, who often move into professions with toxic overworking cultures such as medicine, law, finance and consulting, which they’ve been conditioned to accept.

I've come to the conclusion that the sole purpose of homework is to condition children into accepting that unpaid overtime and ridiculous hours and not even being able to escape work even in your own home are a normal things to expect in their future.

— Erin Ekins (she/her) (@QueerlyAutistic) July 19, 2020

It’s one reason we’ve seen the rising acceptance of unpaid overtime in the Australian economy, particularly among young workers. The average Australian works six weeks’ worth of unpaid overtime a year, losing more than $8000 they’re rightfully owed, according to a November report by the Centre for Future Work. Young people work the most unpaid overtime.

Even if you think the link between homework and overwork is a long bow, it’s clearly a short one for teachers. Teachers rarely have enough time to properly mark homework and provide feedback. It’s thus unsurprising they work 15 hours of unpaid overtime on average a week, according to a 2021 union survey — more than double the national average. Much of it is spent marking homework.

Teacher, leave those kids alone

As our work and home lives have become increasingly blurred through the pandemic, establishing a healthy work-life balance is an important standard to impart to kids from a young age. It will ready them for their economic futures, in which work emails will haunt them digitally if they don’t set strong boundaries.

We should start by heeding Higgins’ call and resigning homework to the history books, at least for primary school students. For older students, we should cap their expected hours at 38, in line with the adult work week. They’re in school for roughly 35 hours a week, and three hours a week of homework fits within the amount the OECD deems beneficial.

It might offend “old school” teachers and parents, but as any teacher marking papers will tell you: for a persuasive conclusion, you must follow the latest evidence.

Homework: who needs it? Let us know by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.