China Releases New Guidelines to Ensure School Children Are Fit & Happy

China has released a new guideline that will ensure schoolchildren spend more time outdoors and engage in artistic hobbies and handicrafts.

The Ministry of Education’s guideline will serve as a key policy document for implementing a health-first education philosophy.

According to the director of the division of physical, health, and arts education under the ministry, Sun Mingchun, while progress has been made, there are other challenges in the school system, such as physical fitness, eyesight, weight management, mental health, food safety, and nutrition.

The guideline thus aims to address these prominent concerns in a coordinated manner and shift the focus from academic performance alone to promoting students’ all-around physical and psychological development.

Eight key tasks are central to this initiative – schools will strengthen physical education by ensuring that primary and secondary school students engage in at least 2 hours of integrated physical activity each day, while also introducing 15-minute class breaks and promoting fitness improvement programs for university students.

Aesthetic education will be enhanced via art courses, regular visits to art exhibitions, and performance mechanisms for all students. Labour education will be reinforced through programmes that cultivate sound work habits and showcase students’ labour skills and achievements.

Mental health education will be deepened by strengthening professional teams and advancing the development of a nationwide monitoring and early warning system focused on students’ mental health.

The guideline also includes comprehensive measures to prevent and control myopia, especially during key stages in kindergartens and primary schools; Campus food safety management will be tightened, including stricter implementation of meal supervision systems and the provision of dedicated food safety and nutrition management personnel; and Life safety education will be incorporated into curricula, with broader dissemination of first-aid knowledge and skills.

Pilot programmes have been launched in more than 540 schools across seven provincial-level regions in Beijing, Hebei, Shanghai, Jiangsu, and Shandong, all in east China, as well as in central China’s Henan and Guangdong in south China, to explore replicable models suitable for healthy school development.

The new guideline will be executed in three stages. By 2027, pilot projects will be completed; by 2030, the health-first philosophy should be widely embraced, and by 2035, higher-quality healthy schools are expected to have been established across the country.