Some Chinese parents are paying as much as $50 an hour to have their children tutored for jump roping

Many Chinese parents are enrolling their children in jump rope schools that cost $50 an hour in the hopes of landing scholarships through China’s national jump rope exams.

No longer a playground activity: The Chinese government introduced physical education requirements, including a national jump rope exam in 2014, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Schools in China must host annual jump rope tests for children from first to sixth grades. The tests have a grading system of Fail, Pass, Good and Excellent.
Students must skip 17 times in a minute to get a passing score in the exam, but those aiming to get a Good result must do more than 87 jumps. Boys would need to make 99 jumps to reach an Excellent result in their grades, while girls need a bit more at 103.
With so much on the line, some parents are now enrolling their children, as young as 3, into jump rope schools in order to secure a better chance to get into good schools. Prices for the lessons vary from $15 to as much as $50 an hour, with one-on-one lessons going as high as 2,000 yuan (approximately $309), state-run China Daily reported.
Susan Zhang, a 34-year-old mother from Beijing, told WSJ that sending her daughter Tangtang to a jump rope school was “one of the wisest decisions” she made. Her daughter used to not be able to make even a few skips with the jump rope but after professional help, she now describes her daughter as a rope skipping powerhouse.

More pressure on students, parents: In an op-ed piece, China Daily pointed out that students are being pushed toward an exam-oriented goal rather than being encouraged to become physically fit.

“Even the parents paying huge sums for their children’s rope-skipping classes are not aiming at improving their children’s health but just ensuring that they score well in the middle school entrance examinations,” the China Daily op-ed read. The activity has also put more academic pressure on children and has put an economic burden on parents.

Featured Image via Santeri Viinamäki (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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