On February 27, it was announced at a press conference held by the Ministry of Education that the ministry has recently issued the "Guiding Opinions on Comprehensively Promoting the Construction of Healthy Schools." The document specifies the implementation of a special campaign to enhance university students' physical fitness, encouraging higher education institutions to offer diverse physical education courses for students in their third year and above, including postgraduates. It also outlines a plan to cultivate labor habits and mandates compulsory labor education courses, including credit requirements, for students at all levels from primary school to university.
Specifically, the guidelines propose eight key tasks for building healthy schools: 1. Strengthen school sports programs by fully implementing a student physical fitness enhancement plan. This includes ensuring primary and secondary school students engage in at least two hours of comprehensive physical activity daily and promoting 15-minute exercise breaks between classes. For university students, institutions are encouraged to provide varied physical education courses and organize extracurricular physical activities of moderate intensity at least three times per week. 2. Enhance aesthetic education in schools through a comprehensive art immersion initiative, ensuring the full implementation of art curricula and establishing regular, inclusive school art exhibition mechanisms. 3. Strengthen labor education by implementing a habit-forming plan, fulfilling compulsory course and credit requirements, and closely integrating labor education with practical learning. Schools are encouraged to organize activities showcasing students' labor skills and achievements. 4. Deepen mental health education by accelerating the development of a school-wide psychological support system, prioritizing student mental health, strengthening the mental health teacher workforce, and advancing the national student mental health monitoring and early warning system. 5. Comprehensively control myopia through a prevention-focused approach, targeting key stages such as kindergarten and primary school, refining myopia prevention requirements, and accelerating the reduction of myopia rates. 6. Effectively manage student weight by implementing an obesity prevention and control plan for primary and secondary students, enhancing home-school collaboration, integrating physical and health education, deepening medical-educational cooperation, and improving categorized management. 7. Ensure campus food safety by strictly standardizing catering management, enforcing systems such as having school administrators join meals, strengthening staff training, and appointing qualified food safety and nutrition health management personnel as required. 8. Reinforce life safety education by integrating safety and health education into the curriculum,普及 emergency rescue knowledge and skills, and equipping schools with automated external defibrillators and other first aid devices as stipulated.
The guidelines also outline four main measures: 1. Continue advancing school health education by improving mechanisms and expanding the supply of quality resources. 2. Deepen the reform of school health management systems, enhancing support conditions and ensuring adequate staffing of school medical professionals. 3. Enhance schools' health management capabilities through medical-educational collaboration in infectious disease prevention and emergency response, and by upgrading the digital intelligence level of healthy school construction. 4. Optimize school health environments by improving teaching facilities and sanitation, and fostering a positive, health-oriented campus culture.
The document sets 16 reference standards for building healthy schools in primary/secondary schools and kindergartens, and 9 standards for higher education institutions. Local education authorities may develop more detailed standards based on regional conditions.
By 2027, the goal is to complete high-standard pilot projects for healthy school construction under the three-year action plan for building a strong education system, with basic improvements in work norms and evaluation standards, forming a large number of replicable models and experiences. By 2030, the "health first" education concept should be widely adopted, school health education and support conditions significantly enhanced, student health continuously improved, and healthy school initiatives extended to every school. By 2035, the aim is to universally establish higher-quality healthy schools.
The guidelines emphasize that local education departments should collaborate with public security, health, market regulation, sports, disease control, and other relevant authorities to promote healthy school construction, strengthen policy guidance, and ensure adequate support, forming a coordinated management framework. The effectiveness of healthy school construction will be incorporated into education supervision and serve as a reference in school evaluations. Schools are required to fulfill their primary responsibilities, enhance health education and services according to the reference standards, and build high-quality, distinctive healthy schools.