A hotline, said to be the nation's first to help solve student problems, opened in Shenzhen on Tuesday, the Southern Metropolitan News reported.

The hotline, 8166-9980, is designed to help students with disruptive behavior, learning problems, addiction to online surfing and other problems that schools and parents find hard to deal with.

He Huabiao, a researcher with the China Social Investigation Institute, will manage the hotline and he expects more experts to join the team.

A center to help solve student problems would also be established soon, He said.

A survey of more than 30 parents in Shenzhen found that more than half had problems with their’s children’s education.

Most Shenzhen residents were comparatively well-off, so parents were willing to invest in children’s education, he said.

Some parents had the wrong idea that money could solve the problems, He said.

They invested heavily on their children, like paying high fees for extra-class education and trying hard to meet their children’s various material needs, but neglected the children’s psychological problems, He said.

He said he was trying to solve the problems with more emphasis on traditional values, such as teaching children how to respect life and social rules, how to face crisis and temptations and how to develop healthy interests and habits.

(Shenzhen Daily November 11, 2004)