Starting this spring semester, primary and secondary schools in Jiangsu Province will officially implement a system for spring and autumn breaks. On February 3, the provincial government work report explicitly stated that it will coordinate the arrangement of these school breaks with employees' paid staggered leave. This policy will be fully implemented across the compulsory education stage. This adjustment is not merely an optimization of the holiday structure but also carries significant expectations for improving the educational ecosystem and expanding growth opportunities. How to transform these breaks from simply "having time off" to "having a meaningful experience" has become a hot topic of discussion among delegates and committee members.
According to the policy arrangement, the spring and autumn breaks, designed around climatic characteristics and teaching schedules, are set for the mid-semester period of each academic year. Each break will last for three days—spring break in April-May and autumn break in October-November—and can be connected with statutory holidays and weekends to form longer vacation periods. To ensure teaching order is maintained, the total number of teaching weeks per academic year will remain unchanged. The break days will be allocated from the flexible week available each semester or by appropriately adjusting the duration of the summer and winter vacations. During the breaks, all localities must strictly implement the "double reduction" policy, meaning no written homework will be assigned to students in grades one and two, and the total amount of written homework for other grades will be strictly controlled.
"Exploring the spring and autumn break system is a positive measure to promote the well-rounded development of students. The key is to avoid it becoming a mere extension of holidays or an additional burden on families," suggested Qi Yundong, a member of the Provincial CPPCC Committee and Party Secretary of Nanjing Langya Road Primary School. She recommended that the education department take the lead, collaborating with multiple departments to launch a "Recommended Guide for Jiangsu Youth's Social Practice Activities During Spring and Autumn Breaks." This guide would cover diverse projects such as urban exploration, nature education, and career initiation, ensuring the breaks retain their educational purpose.
Zhang Cehua, a member of the Provincial CPPCC Committee and Party Secretary of Nanjing Xiaozhuang University, believes that the spring and autumn breaks present an important opportunity to advance the collaborative education efforts of schools, families, and society. He proposed integrating resources from various parties: the government could issue study-tour consumption vouchers or purchase social services to reduce family costs; cultural and tourism departments could coordinate with museums and cultural venues for targeted access; and schools could design experiential holiday guides to facilitate "learning by doing" through practice. Furthermore, holiday实践活动 should be incorporated into comprehensive quality evaluations. Nanjing could leverage resources from local universities to develop specialized courses, thereby enriching the substance of the breaks.
"But when the children are on break, where are the parents' holidays?" Addressing this practical bottleneck, delegates and committee members emphasized the necessity of promoting "synchronization of family and school holidays." Committee member Qi Yundong suggested that policy incentives could be offered to enterprises that implement "parental spring/autumn leave" or flexible working systems, thereby encouraging亲子陪伴 (parent-child companionship).
Yu Dunde, a deputy to the Provincial People's Congress and CEO of Nanjing Tuniu Technology Co., Ltd. (Tuniu), expressed that the spring/autumn breaks and employees' paid staggered leave are beneficial for regulating the high and low seasons in the cultural and tourism market. This coordination allows for a more balanced allocation of service resources throughout the year, enhances the stability of tourism services, and promotes high-quality development in the tourism sector. Yu Dunde recommended that the total annual holiday time remain unchanged overall. He suggested placing the spring break before the May Day holiday and the autumn break after the National Day holiday, while allowing individual schools some flexibility to schedule the specific dates within a certain window to stagger the vacation periods. Following the implementation of the breaks in primary and secondary schools, parents could then plan their own paid annual leave around their children's schedules, which would in turn help stimulate domestic consumption.
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