In a Luddite Movement-like demonstration, students at a Hunan middle school burned their textbooks to give vent to their long bridled anger caused by the tight class schedule after suffering a power failure on Friday night, according to a CCTV program.

“It was like snowing,” one student said. “The ground was completely covered by the books. Some were burning the books, some chucking them, some pouring water from above.”

In China, high grade are widely seen as the only gauge of academic success. The schools, especially the parents who have high expectations for their children, seek to improve their academic performance by cramming in more instruction and class work at the expense of the students’ regular recess.

The class schedule of the school revealed that the poor students only have Sunday morning off – time they use to get more sleep to prepare for the inordinate courses.

Classes cost about 2 or 3 yuan on average. But the students had to pay more than 1,000 yuan (about $167) each semester for the classes that they were forced to join and the study materials they had to buy.

“I just want the schools to know that today cramming is rampant and hateful. We students are tired,” another student said.

The power failure didn’t bring them the break they expected. Instead they were asked to study alone until 10 pm.

In a poll on Sina Weibo, a microblogging website in China, an overwhelming majority of the voters expressed their approval of the students’ demonstration; few users were inclined to condemn the ferocity of the student’s collective action.

User 艾米养生喵 wrote：“Study is an act of self-motivation. It is useless to force them to study.”

User 杨柳轻扬_2008 wrote：”As a teacher, I am opposed to cramming, which encroaches on the regular recess of both the students and the teachers. Cramming will not improve grades, but exhausts their energy.”

User 想-念-式 wrote: “Burning the books can cause a short period of public hysteria, but it will not solve the problem once and for all. They still have to receive the crammed courses.”

User 公茂刚 wrote: “It seems that the students need sympathy. But without cramming, now a national phenomenon, how can you catch up with others, especially when you are preparing for the college entrance examination? Without changes in the policies related to the examination, no end of cramming can be predicted……you are not competing against your fellow students in the same school, but against the students of the entire nation. So it is your own choice to decide whether or not to cram more.”

By Xu Xinlei