Think you've got enough schoolwork on your plate? According to Huang Daren, president of Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, Chinese students are due for another helping.

"Colleges should add more schoolwork for in order to help foster innovation in students," Huang was quoted by Beijing Daily last month as saying.

"If we don't add more reading materials, the quality of teaching will decline. Then how can we foster competitive students?" Huang said.

What do you think of giving a heavier workload to college students?

Xiong Yiquan

An engineering management junior at Chongqing University

I support the idea. China's universities are difficult to get into but easy to graduate from, which causes students to slack off after getting in. Some don't work hard until they start looking for jobs during their junior or senior year.

At many universities, teachers also are too busy to put energy into teaching. And even though students don't really understand the class material, they can still pass exams easily. What on earth can students really learn under such teaching methods?

Xie Juan

A second-year grad student in material science at Xi'an Jiaotong University in Shaanxi Province

I oppose the idea. More schoolwork will have a negative influence on students' creativity. If we work only for the sake of grades, how can we learn innovation and independent thinking?

In class, quite a few of teachers just use their old PowerPoints and assign the same textbooks for years. How can such teaching inspire our interest in a subject? If we have no interest, how can we really create something?

Xie Zuoxu

An education professor at Xiamen University in Fujian Province

We can't merely expect giving students more work to improve our education. The way we study is more important than the quantity of schoolwork.

Our culture is different from that of Western countries, which foster independence. Foreign universities have a long history of placing emphasis on innovation and creativity. China is just starting and should promote this approach system step by step.

Zhang Xiaoyi

An English teacher at Beijing Foreign Studies University

We can't say increasing schoolwork is a good thing or bad thing. On one hand, excessive schoolwork just creates pressure when schools should stress innovation.

On the other, there are some problems in assessing the quality of teachers, which has a direct influence on students. Instructors are given yearly evaluations, in which lesson plans account for a small percentage. As a result, teaching quality is inevitably overlooked and thus can't be ensured. College teachers like me hope more feasible and better evaluations can be made.