Why Secondary School should start later

Sleep deprivation is a prevalent issue in Singapore. However, this issue is particularly worrying amongst Singaporean adolescents. There was an important discovery that the teenage body clock is biologically different from an adult’s or child’s body clock. The body clock, or what is scientifically known as circadian rhythms, controls our sleep-wake cycle. The systems in our body are in sync with circadian rhythms that are managed by a master clock in our brains. The master clock reacts to light, informing our body when it is night or day, hence when we should sleep (“Circadian”). So, the circadian systems are more sensitive to light when an individual is going through puberty, leading to teenagers naturally sleeping later than people of other ages (Crowley et al. 4067). With our school typically starting at 7:30 am or 7:45 am, it is difficult for the students to get the required amount of sleep. Moreover, sleep is paramount for good health and full utilisation of an individual’s cognitive capacity (Gooley). Since well-rested students consistently perform better academically and are healthier, lessons should start later for Secondary School students in Singapore, even though the measure would affect traffic on the roads.

First of all, researchers have established that teenagers fare better academically when they have sufficient sleep. An American National Sleep Foundation study in 2015 concluded that teenagers should sleep from eight to ten hours to be considered healthy (Hirshkowitz et al. 40). Surveys by the local Need for Study by Duke-NUS discovered that Singaporean Secondary School students are consistently sleeping below the recommended amount of time, with an average of six and a half hours a night (“Hitting”). The issue is clear: Secondary School students are sleep deprived. Brown University researcher, Carskadon noted that there has been an observable link between not enough sleep and lower academic performance (137). When students have sufficient sleep, they can process information with more clarity (“Get Enough”). Students will also have better concentration, focus, reaction time, and decision-making skills (Foley). Sleep supports learning and memory, cognition is simply greatly improved when students get enough sleep. On the other hand, when students are chronically sleep-deprived, their memory is poorer, with an inability to concentrate and their ability to critically think is also greatly impaired (Richter). There is overwhelming research into how learning is affected by sleep and the consensus is simply that students require eight hours of sleep at the very least to fulfill their true academic potential. In a country like Singapore where our only resource is people, arguably we should be doing everything to maximise the quality and productivity of our students. It is a reasonable suggestion for Singapore to shift the school start time later to 8:15am or 8:30am. Since pushing back our school start time by 45 minutes to an hour increases our teenager’s ability to learn, why should we continue to allow this system to deprive them of sleep? Academic research proves that our students would benefit greatly from an extra hour of sleep. Sufficient sleep will help them to focus and learn better in school which leads to improvement in their academic performance, therefore school should start later.

In addition to academic improvements, adolescents' physical and mental health improves when school starts later. When people are sleep deprived, their chances of becoming obese. Before going into the reason why sleep deprivation causes these health issues, it is important to establish an understanding of social jetlag. Social jetlag is the inconsistency between sleep on weekdays and the weekends. It has been shown to lead to increased health risks. Social jetlag is shown to be a result of a misalignment between socially enforced sleep times such as when you have to wake up for school or work and your body's circadian rhythm (Haraszti et al.). So, when school starts too early, it does not align well with the scientifically proven teenage body clock, hence causing this social jetlag to be more prevalent. As previously mentioned, too much social jetlag is known to be universally bad for human health. Another study supports that higher social jetlag relates to higher body-mass index and a possible connection with obesity and metabolic issues in general (Parsons et al.). Therefore, students’ physical health will benefit from school starting later, because they would be able to narrow the gap between their sleep on weekdays and weekends. Moving on to mental health, sleep deprivation leads to unstable mood and mental states. A 2016 Australian study showed that there is a relationship between sleep deprivation and lower sleep quality amongst adolescents and the increase of depressive symptoms displayed in that age group (Raniti et al.). This is a deeply concerning trend that is alarming. Later school starting times would help mitigate this issue by allowing the students more sleep, thus lowering the chances of them suffering from these negative effects. Sleep deprivation in students is, plainly, not good for the students' health. This is depicted in another study, where students who had less sleep on school nights self-reported had higher chances of poorer health, being overweight and displaying symptoms of depression (Yeo et al.). Thus, later school starting time is shown to be better for our teenagers’ health and mental well-being.

Unfortunately, later school starting times could have negative impacts like issues with public transportation and heavy road traffic. Before discussing the issues with starting Secondary School in Singapore later, Nanyang Girls’ Highschool (NYGH) delayed their school start time to 8:15 am from 7:30 am in mid-2016. This move brought lots of media attention and debate amongst the Singapore general public. The issues with starting school later are best explained by a disapproving parent. NUS Computer Science Associate Professor Ben Leong expressed strong disapproval of NYGH’s move to delay school starting time through a post on Facebook. He believes that it is a “poorly conceived idea” and that the students could simply sleep earlier to get more sleep. He cites the peak hour traffic in the morning as the issue calling it a “bloody disaster” and that the reason why morning traffic is relatively under control is that students go to school first and the adults go to work later (“Your Opinion”). Additionally, blogger Lhu Wen Kai commented on this measure in his blog, describing later school starting time as “sheer unfeasibility”. Lhu believes that our transportation system would “collapse spectacularly” if the whole of Singapore were to start school at 8:15 am. In an opinion piece by Lim Chee Khiam in the Straits Times forum, Lim echoed the idea that our public transport would not be able to handle both students and working adults at the same time. Lim believes that sleep does not affect the student’s academic performance, instead believes that it is reliant on self-discipline. But, in another forum opinion piece, then Secondary Four NYGH student Kaitlyn Hong did note that despite some students misusing their newfound time, starting school later should not be thrown out the window. So, starting school later would be difficult to roll out throughout our Secondary Schools in Singapore because of the logistics behind the execution of such a move.

All in all, Healthhub Singapore sums it up the best: when you are chronically sleep-deprived, your health, cognitive performance, physical safety, and mental health will all be affected (“How Sleep”). Secondary School students need at least eight hours of sleep to be healthy. Therefore, even though there are pitfalls, a University of Michigan study affirms that it is important that parents are educated on the full benefits of a later school starting time. Parent’s perception is fully shaped by how much they know about the benefits of later school starting times (Dunietz et al.). Also, an extensive literature review of how school start time affects students revealed that even small delays in start time cause a compelling increase in sleeping time for the students (Wheaton et al.). Furthermore, the case study of NYGH’s 45-minute delay in school starting time has shown great results. The researchers have concluded that the delay in school start time had a lasting impact on the Nanyang students’ sleep time, alertness, and mental state; despite the strong pre-existing culture of foregoing sleep for academics in the school (Lo et al.). Therefore, the benefits outweigh the drawbacks so Singapore should consider following in the footsteps of the NYGH experiment and delay our Secondary Schools’ start time.

Works Cited

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