BEIJING, Sept. 21 (Xinhua) -- After months of hibernating at home due to COVID-19, children's eyesight has become a major concern for parents in China, and they urge schools to help control the problem as students returned to campus for the new semester this month, said the China Youth Daily.
A recent survey by the newspaper revealed that as high as 89.1 percent of parents worried about their children's eye care awareness and habits since they had been cooped up indoors for about half a year under coronavirus measures.
These concerns are not without merit. Among the 1,505 respondents, 50.6 percent reported progression of nearsightedness in their children, according to the survey. The percentage peaked among middle school students (61.5 percent), followed by high school students at 56.3 percent.
This echoes a separate poll by the Ministry of Education, which showed that the rate of myopia among China's primary school pupils, middle school students and high school students had climbed 11.7 percent in six months. A total of 14,532 students took part in the poll.
According to the newspaper, 75.4 percent of the respondents are parents of primary school pupils, 19.3 percent are parents of middle school students and 5.3 percent are parents of high school students.
Parents blamed less frequent outdoor exercise and activities, indulgence in video games, more online courses and poor eye care awareness for the myopic progression in their children over the past few months, according to the survey.
Around 67 percent of the respondents urged schools to allocate enough time for students to perform eye exercises and attend regular physical education courses at school. Other suggestions included adjustments to academic workloads and restrictions on mobile phone use in schools. Enditem
