My day as a student goes from 7:30 AM to 9:00 PM. This may not be the same for everyone, but for me and many students in Taiwan, mandatory night study is a normal part of school life. Many schools require students to stay late at school for one to five days a week depending on their grade level. Since these study sessions are arranged for the whole class or even the whole grade, students cannot refuse or be absent.

Although schools believe night study helps improve academic performance, forced night study should be banned because it harms students’ health and is not actually effective.

After the torture of class from 7:30 AM to 5:30 PM, students are too exhausted both mentally and physicallly to keep studying until 9 PM, especially in a stressful environment. Night study kills motivation to focus since students feel forced and tired. Our brains stop absorbing information effectively. As a result, most students are just sitting there, not actually learning.

Health Issues

Night study is more than just a waste of time. Night study contributes to health problems. Students don’t get enough sleep. School ends at 9 PM which means we get home around 10 PM. As a result, I usually use night study time to sleep or leave the class and sit on the bench outside our classroom to chill a bit. However, students should not need to sleep during study time in the first place. Taking naps late in the evening throws off my sleep schedule, making it even harder to sleep properly at night and causing me to be more tired the next day. Night study only keeps me tired, so by the end of the week I am barely keeping my eyes open, even in my regular classes. Students not only have a hard time focusing in class the next day but also have a hard time doing any work over the weekend because they are so desperate for rest and a break.

Most importantly, night study is the reason students get fat. The meals schools offer are mostly terrible, causing students to starve until we get home. As a result, many students end up eating a second dinner late at night even though they already “ate” at school earlier. Since it’s after 9 when we get home, healthy restaurants are already closed and parents don’t want to be cooking that late, leaving convenience store food, instant noodles, fried snacks, or fast food as options. Eating unhealthy food before bed can contribute to weight gain. Therefore, mandatory night study encourages unhealthy eating schedules and poor lifestyle habits instead of supporting our well-being.

Unbalanced Life

In addition to health problems, night study means students don’t have a healthy balance between school and life. My classmates have almost no time for themselves. Whenever you ask a student who spends most of their life studying what they love to do, “watching Netflix” or “scrolling TikTok” is probably their answer. However, it’s not because they only enjoy watching mindless videos but because they don’t have the energy to explore more authentic hobbies. All they want is to find something that they can zone out with.

What’s worse, night study takes away family time. We spend more time at school than at home. We have no time to rest properly, leaving very little time to talk with family, relax with each other, or recover emotionally. Over time, this unhealthy routine can lead to burnout, frustration, and a feeling that life revolves around studying.

It’s just a waste of time

At night study, it’s after a long day of school, so most students are just pretending to function. Schools may say that keeping students at school increases productivity, but forcing teenagers to stay at school until 9 PM every day is unhealthy, ineffective, and unnecessary. My school says that mandatory night study exists because “students just need to work harder”. Justify the policy because “everyone survived it before.” However, just because something has become normal does not mean it is healthy or effective. If students are so tired that they are sleeping in class and regularly eating instant noodles at midnight, maybe this “normal” has become a problem.

Students are human beings, not robots designed to study nonstop for fourteen hours a day. Instead of forcing students to sacrifice their health and happiness for extra hours of sitting in classrooms, schools should focus on helping students learn in healthier and more meaningful ways.

For Taiwanese students’ sake, mandatory night study should be banned.