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Chinese students raise a stink after university orders them to take on janitor duties

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Chinese students raise a stink after university orders them to take on janitor duties

'We're here to study, not clean!' students say after president orders them to take charge of cleaning dorms and toilets to build character


PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 09 September, 2014, 4:38pm
UPDATED : Tuesday, 09 September, 2014, 4:38pm

Kathy Gao [email protected]

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Students of Nanchang University resisted a policy putting them in charge of cleaning duties from September 1. Photo: Weibo

A Chinese university’s new policy demanding that students clean their own dormitories – including toilets – has caused a backlash, as pupils complained they should be there purely to study.

Students of Nanchang University, a prestigious school in China’s southeastern Jiangxi province, were put in charge of cleaning duties from September 1, the start of the term. University authorities said the initiative was intended to make students better people by doing labour work.

”Students born after the 1990s are very weak in manual labour. [Most of them are] the single child in the family,” university president Zhou Chuangbing said, explaining the policy’s rationale in response to the criticisms.

”So I think labouring can get them trained, which [also] popularises many traditional Chinese traits,” Zhou said in an interview with Shanghai-based news website thepaper.cn.

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Students say garbage has piled up at the dorms after the designated cleaners left and students have had no time to take on custodial duties. Photo: Weibo

However, students countered that they had come to the school to study, not to clean. Four days into the new policy, more than 470 students signed an open letter to Zhou in protest.

The absence of hired cleaners as well as students’ refusal to take on custodial duties has already caused problems. Pictures online showed dorms piled up with garbage and students said the toilets in the dorms were in “terrible condition”.

”No one cleaned [the dorms] for the whole day … and [one] cannot even step into the toilet,” a student from the university commented on Weibo.

A post praising the new policy on Nanchang University’s official microblog on September 2 was challenged by many students.

“Do we come to study or to clean toilets? [The university] only reports on the good side but why didn’t they include complaints from students?” one pupil commented.

The university has since closed the comment function on all its posts on Weibo.

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Rationalising the new policy, the university's president said students 'born after the 1990s are very weak in manual labour'. Photo: Weibo

Another university student told the Beijing Times that many students ended up being tardy because they had to clean the rooms, hallways and restrooms before classes started at 8am. Another student said that water supply cuts out at 11pm, making toilet-cleaning more difficult.

The inconvenienced students hit back at Zhou, saying the university president should clean his own quarters too if he wanted to lead by example.

Zhou stated that he had been through much hardship when he was young and that students could learn a lot from manual labour.

Nanchang University’s website says it has 72,466 undergraduate students and 12,738 postgraduates.

A teacher told the Beijing Times that the students would be given 500 yuan a month, to split among themselves, as a reward for cleaning each floor. The report did not give specifics.

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The toilets are now in 'terrible condition' after the new cleaning policy came into effect, a student says. Photo: Weibo

Local media reports said a few enterprising pupils had already hired back the cleaners who left the university due to the new policy.

In a meeting at the university on September 5, Zhou acknowledged the problems and opposition this initiative encountered and urged different university departments to better organise students’ cleaning schedules.

But Zhou refused to back down on the issue, saying the policy would still be in place.


 
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