In this blog post, we will look at the positive effects of the 9 a.m. school start policy on young people’s sleep, family bonding, and morning time utilization.
I am in favor of the 9 a.m. school start policy for the following reasons.
First, delaying school start times provides an improved sleep environment. These days, students have to wake up early in the morning to get to school on time, which means they are not getting enough sleep during their formative years. In fact, among OECD countries, Korea ranks highest in terms of study hours, while the average sleep time for high school students is 5 hours and 48 minutes, which is the lowest among OECD countries. The more sleep adolescents get, the better their physical and mental health will be during their growth period, which will improve their concentration and lead to better learning outcomes. Currently, students often feel sleepy during classes that start before 9 a.m. due to lack of sleep. In addition, a survey found that students who sleep less than seven hours a day on average are 1.4 times more likely to have suicidal thoughts than those who sleep seven hours or more. It is expected that insufficient sleep has a significant impact on the high youth suicide rate in Korea, which is a serious issue, and this problem must be addressed by improving sleep hours along with other measures. Therefore, it is necessary to increase sleep hours by adjusting school start times.
Second, implementing a 9 a.m. school start policy will give students more options for how to spend their mornings. Currently, in areas other than Gyeonggi Province, where the 9 a.m. school start policy has been implemented, it is difficult to use the morning time for anything other than getting ready for school and commuting. Although it varies from school to school, in cases where the school start time is early, students must arrive at school by 7:30 a.m., which means they must wake up at 7 a.m. to allow for commuting and getting ready. Therefore, although it is not impossible to engage in other activities after waking up, it is difficult because it requires further reduction of already insufficient sleep time. If they do not wake up early, it is difficult to eat breakfast, and even if they do wake up early, they will skip breakfast if their parents, who prepare it, are not awake. However, if the 9 a.m. school start time policy is implemented, students will have an extra hour to an hour and a half of free time, depending on their current school start time, which they can use to do things they were not able to do before. For example, students in general high schools have to go to school early, between 7:30 and 8:00 a.m., so they have to leave before other family members wake up. However, if their parents’ work start times and their siblings’ school start times are the same, they will be able to have breakfast with their families and eat a hearty meal to stay healthy. They will also be able to use their free time in the morning to exercise, catch up on sleep, or do other things, allowing them to have more leisure time in their busy lives.
Third, delaying the start of school can strengthen family bonds. In many households, parents and students follow their own schedules, making it difficult to spend time together. With a 9 a.m. school start time, the whole family will wake up at around the same time, naturally increasing the opportunity to eat breakfast together and spend time talking in the morning. This will greatly help strengthen family bonds. Time spent with family provides emotional stability for students, which will have a positive impact on their learning and overall life.
The counterargument to the first argument is that even if the start time of school is delayed, the overall end time will also be delayed, which will cause cram school hours to be delayed as well, making it difficult to expect an actual increase in sleep time. My opinion on this is as follows. First, for students who do not attend many cram schools, even if the school dismissal time is delayed, they will still be able to complete their afternoon schedule, so this does not apply to them. For students who attend many cram schools, under the current elementary and secondary cram school law, cram schools cannot open after 10 p.m., so their bedtime will not be delayed because they attend cram school. In addition, some may argue that there will be no change in sleep time because there will be no change in the amount of study. However, I do not think it is possible to conclude that the amount of study is proportional to the amount of study time, which is the time spent studying minus sleep time in a 24-hour period. If improving sleep creates an environment where students can concentrate, reducing study time by 60 to 90 minutes will not reduce the amount of study.
The expected counterargument to the second argument is that even if the school start time is delayed, most students will end up using the extra morning time to sleep rather than eating breakfast with their families, exercising, or doing other activities. Of course, for most students, it may be used for sleep, but for some students, it will be time that can be used freely even after they have caught up on their sleep. If freedom is given in all cases, students’ choices will vary. However, I believe that it is important for society to move in the direction of giving students choices. In addition, even students who use the extra time only for sleep can benefit from catching up on sleep. I believe that simply guaranteeing the right to sleep and potentially opening up more free time is valuable enough to give young people more leeway in their lives.
Other additional objections to this policy include physical rhythms, unreasonable policy implementation, the work hours of dual-income couples, and commuting issues. Regarding physical rhythms, high school students taking mock exams and high school seniors taking college entrance exams find it difficult to adjust their physical rhythms because exams start at 8:00 a.m. The current college entrance exams and mock exams are scheduled to coincide with the current school start time, but they do not have to start at 8:00 a.m. Therefore, if the 9:00 a.m. school start policy is implemented across the board, most exams will have to be rescheduled.
In the case of Gyeonggi Province, there is opposition to the 9 a.m. school start policy because it was implemented without sufficient notice and caused many conflicts. However, this was a mistake that did not take into consideration the positions of teachers, students, and parents, and it should be avoided in the future. Nevertheless, this alone is not a reason to oppose the 9 a.m. school start policy. In the future, it would be reasonable to conduct surveys and opinion polls to inform the public of the policy and implement it based on the results.
In addition, there are objections from dual-income parents with young children who currently send their children to school early and then get ready for work, saying that if the 9 a.m. school start time policy is implemented, it will overlap with their work start time, making it difficult for them to take care of their children in the morning. In such cases, the difficulties faced by dual-income couples can be sufficiently resolved by measures such as opening libraries in the morning and offering morning programs before 9 a.m., and it cannot be said that these issues, which can be resolved through such improvements, take precedence over the right of adolescents to sleep.
In conclusion, the 9 a.m. school start policy should be implemented with sufficient notice and research to avoid public backlash due to its sudden implementation, which could affect physical rhythms, cause unreasonable policy implementation, and create problems for dual-income families.
