Put a stop to ‘out-of-hours’ homework. One of the reasons? Three out of four pupils are set homework in the afternoon

“We want schools that teach pupils to study methodically, responsibly and calmly, whilst respecting both their own pace and that of their families.” With these words, the Minister for Education and Merit, Giuseppe Valditara, has officially announced a crackdown on a practice that is becoming increasingly common and is met with growing resentment among pupils: the constant setting of homework via digital platforms (primarily the electronic register), well beyond school hours.

The ministerial circular, which has just been sent to schools and is already in force for the 2026/2027 academic year, is clear: assignments must be handed out in class before the end of lessons, reviving the use of the paper diary and strictly avoiding “entries in the electronic register in the late afternoon, in the evening or at the weekend that force pupils and families to constantly check for updates”.
The document also promotes collaborative planning to avoid scheduling multiple tests on the same day, urging headteachers to encourage “students to disconnect from digital devices”.

But how necessary was such a directive? Very necessary, as confirmed by the data collected periodically on this subject by the Skuola.net portal – by listening to the accounts of hundreds of girls and boys in lower and upper secondary school – which paint a picture of an education system in which technology has blurred the boundaries between study time and private life, imposing a regime of constant availability.

In fact, looking at the routine of a normal school year, receiving notifications in the afternoon or at the weekend with new assignments for the following days has become standard practice. Only 1 in 4 pupils – the latest survey, carried out a few months ago, puts the figure at a meagre 24 per cent – are set homework in the traditional way, i.e. all in person, during lesson time.
For the vast majority, however, technology has extended ‘school time’: for nearly two in three pupils (62 per cent), it is quite common for assignments to be set outside school hours (in the afternoon or at the weekend) via the class register, email or chat.
And for a significant proportion – 14 per cent (roughly 1 in 7 pupils) – this is not the exception but the rule, with most of their homework being systematically set well after the final bell has rung.The maths is simple: as many as 3 in 4 pupils are periodically (if not constantly) hit by the burden of homework assigned after school hours.

This extension of teaching hours, moreover, does not even pause during the longest holiday periods. Figures relating to the last summer holidays show an equally alarming trend: over half of pupils (54 per cent) were set digital homework after the final bell in June.
Looking at the details, whilst only 46 per cent were given all their work before the actual end of term, for the others the holidays were ‘interrupted’ by belated notifications: 31 per cent of pupils were given an extra workload on top of what had already been set in class.
But the most concerning figure is that nearly one in four pupils (23 per cent) received the bulk of their homework well into the holidays.