On June 1, 2012, the Ministry of Education Office issued a notice titled "The Ministry of Education Office's Policy Interpretation on Launching Vision Protection Campaigns for Primary and Secondary School Students," which required all localities and schools to attach great importance to this work and enhance the sense of urgency and responsibility. This work should be considered as an important content to implement the Education Development and Reform Plan for the Medium and Long Term (2010-2020), promote quality education, and promote the healthy growth of young people. The main points of the notice are as follows:

To implement the requirement of protecting students' vision in the Education Development and Reform Plan for the Medium and Long Term (2010-2020), the Ministry of Education decided to organize vision protection propaganda activities for primary and secondary school students on June 6, 2012, the National "Love Your Eyes" Day. The Ministry of Education Office thus issued the following notice:

1.Increase awareness and attach great importance to the work of protecting students' vision. According to the 2010 National Student Physical Health Survey, the vision of Chinese students is not optimistic, with the rates of poor vision for primary school students aged 7-12, junior high school students aged 13-15, and high school students aged 16-18 reaching 40.89%, 67.33%, and 79.20%, respectively. The State Council attaches great importance to this issue and requires strengthening the work of protecting students' vision. All localities and schools should attach great importance to this work, enhance the sense of urgency and responsibility, and consider it as an important content to implement the Education Development and Reform Plan for the Medium and Long Term (2010-2020), promote quality education, and promote the healthy growth of young people. With the campaign of protecting students' vision as the starting point, various measures should be implemented to carry out this work effectively.

2.Organize carefully and carry out in-depth vision protection propaganda activities for students. All localities and schools should make careful arrangements and detailed plans for propaganda, organize various forms of propaganda activities, and make full use of radio, newspapers, websites, mobile phone text messages, school bulletin boards, and themed class meetings, etc. to popularize the knowledge of scientific eye care, prevention of myopia, and other eye health knowledge. The aim is to enhance students' awareness of eye care and promote students to develop correct reading and writing postures and eye health habits. Schools should also disseminate the information to parents through parent-teacher conferences, parent newsletters, etc., and strive to gain parents' support and cooperation in protecting students' vision.

3.Innovative forms should be adopted to create an atmosphere that supports the protection of students' eyesight. Various regions should innovate the forms of publicity activities, actively solicit and mobilize the participation of professional organizations and news media, and guide the whole society to pay attention to and attach importance to the protection of students' eyesight. From June 1st to August 31st, 2012, our department will launch a "Let's Talk About Protecting Students' Eyesight" essay competition to promote and introduce practices and experiences related to the protection of students' eyesight. During the event, our department will also donate "Standard Logarithmic Visual Acuity Charts" to some schools in remote areas of western rural China. Localities should guide schools to actively participate in the essay competition according to local conditions and use visual acuity charts to check and monitor students' visual conditions, and take targeted measures for eye protection.

4.Strengthen supervision to promote the implementation of measures for protecting students' eyesight. Education administrative departments at all levels should strengthen the inspection of eye protection work in primary and secondary schools in their administrative areas in conjunction with publicity activities for protecting students' eyesight, focusing on checking whether relevant work measures have been implemented according to the "Work Plan for Preventing and Controlling Myopia in Primary and Secondary School Students" (Jiao Ti Yi [2008] No. 7). They should also promptly collect and summarize the development of various student eye protection publicity activities. Provincial education administrative departments should submit a summary of publicity activities to the Department of Physical Education, Health, and Art Education of our department before November 1, 2012.

Source: Official website of the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China.