Chinese University Restricts Students' Personal Computer Use

Dec 09, 2014 11:11 AM EST

(Photo : Adrees Latif) Offenders research and work on their papers inside the Southwestern Baptist Theological computer lab located in the Darrington Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice men's prison in Rosharon, Texas August 12, 2014. The Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, a private college based in Fort Worth, Texas, began its bachelor of science in biblical studies program at Darrington, south of Houston, about three years ago. To be accepted, an offender has to be at least 10 years from the possibility of parole, have a good behavior record and the appropriate academic credentials to enroll in a college course. The program, which is largely paid for by charitable contributions from the Heart of Texas Foundation, has more than 150 prisoners enrolled and plans to send its graduates as field ministers to other units who want the bible college alumni for peer counseling and spiritual guidance. The first degrees are expected to be conferred next year. Picture taken August 12, 2014. To match Feature USA-TEXAS/PRISON REUTERS/Adrees Latif (UNITED STATES - Tags: CRIME LAW EDUCATION SOCIETY RELIGION)

Monitoring the use of computers in a public setting is fairly usual, however, it is unheard of to place limits on personal computer use in a private setting. But this is what is going on at Hangzhou Normal University in China, which wants to limit its students' use of their own computers to five hours on weekdays, and 12 hours during the weekend.

Like Us on Facebook

To make sure that the limits are met, the school is installing software called Tu Eagles on students' personal computers or laptops to monitor them. The software instantly disrupts the connection when the limit has been reached. It could also restrict other software downloads and the browsing is very limited. According to the school, it is only promoting a healthy way for its students to use computers.

At the moment the limit is only implemented on the school's science and engineering departments. And out of the population of 400 freshmen students taking those courses, none has yet brought their computer to school.

Most of the students who voiced out their opinion question whether the school has the right to place a limit on using their personal computers. One of the teachers said that the school actually does have the right to do that, but that the students have the option to not bring their computers if they don't want to deal with the limiting software.

The teacher added that in case a student was caught uninstalling the software, he or she would be given a memo for their first offense. And for their second, the student would be asked to take their computers home.

TagsHangzhou Normal University