For teenagers in the Indonesian city of Kupang, school now starts at 5:30 a.m. every day. Parents and experts do not like the experiment.
the essentials in brief
- Students in an Indonesian city have to go to school at 5:30 a.m.
- Experts warn of the negative consequences of getting up too early and lack of sleep.
- According to a 2014 study, school should not start before 8:30 am.
School starts at 5:30 in the morning. In Kupang, the capital of the Indonesian province of Nusa Tenggara Timur, 12th graders from ten schools are being subjected to an experiment.
The goal: the discipline of the children should be increased. But the shot seems to backfire.
Expert: “Has nothing to do with the quality of education”
Not only the parents of the approximately 16-year-old students are appalled by the early start to school. Even experts don’t like the authorities’ experiment.
“This has nothing to do with efforts to improve the quality of education,” an education expert from the local university is quoted as saying by the Guardian. The lack of sleep can endanger the health of the students. In the long term, this also results in a change in behavior.
“They only sleep for a few hours, and that poses a serious risk to their health. It also leads to stress and they will relieve their stress by misbehaving.”
Teenagers need eight to ten hours of sleep
According to a 2014 US study, classes for middle and high school students should start at 8:30 a.m. at the earliest. So the teenagers would have enough time to sleep. And they need it.
Because during puberty, the sleep hormone melatonin is only released later in the day. As a result, young people stay awake longer and change their sleep patterns. Starting school too early robs them of important hours of sleep.
“Requiring a teenager to wake up at eight thirty in the morning and take in information is like asking an adult to do the same at four in the morning,” the NZZ quoted neuroscientist Matthew Walker as saying.
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The American Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that teenagers sleep eight to ten hours a night. If school does not start too early, a lack of sleep and thus depression, anxiety and even suicidal thoughts can be prevented.
Mother: “Can’t accept that”
In this respect, the start of school in Switzerland – usually at 7.30 a.m. – would also be too early. But internationally, a later start seems to be the trend. In the US state of California, the start of school was pushed back last year, in Australia the first lesson starts at 9 a.m.
In Indonesia, a little further north, teenagers from ten schools now trotted in at 5:30 a.m. every day. “You have to leave the house while it’s still pitch black, I can’t accept that,” a mother told AFP. “Your safety isn’t guaranteed when it’s dark and quiet.”
Her daughter now has to get up at 4 a.m. every day. “Every time she comes home now, she is exhausted and falls asleep immediately.”