The Ministry of Education on Thursday published a new guideline on calligraphy education for the country's primary and middle schools.

Unlike a similar guideline issued in 2011, the guideline sets specific calligraphy course requirements for each period of study and calls for including the courses in evaluations of the schools' performance.

The guideline calls for one hour of compulsory brush calligraphy exercises per week for students from grade 3 to 6 and follow-up training for high school students starting from the upcoming spring semester.

Calligraphy refers to handwriting that is created using brushes or hard-tipped pens.

Wang Jiaxin, vice president of the China Calligraphers' Association, said calligraphy should serve as an essential part of education, adding that it is extremely urgent to start calligraphy training for young students.

According said Zhu Yongxin, deputy head of the Chinese Society of Education, over 90 percent of primary and middle schools did not have handwriting courses in 2011. Many students have been found to have difficulties writing clearly or correctly.

On Sina Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, the new policy has garnered some public support.

Weibo user "yangzhiting" said the use of computers has caused a general degradation in teenagers' handwriting ability.

However, concerns about students' existing study burdens and the actual benefits of the courses have also been voiced.

Most of the characters used in brush calligraphy come from traditional Chinese, which was replaced by simplified Chinese decades ago on the Chinese mainland.

Studying calligraphy in traditional Chinese many create an extra burden for students, said Weibo user "liyibinv."

The ministry said that although separate tests on calligraphy will not be given, teachers should give credit for students who exhibit good handwriting on other exams.

In China, calligraphy has been revered as an art form since it was first used in the fifth century BC.

It is recognized by Chinese practitioners as a symbol of their identity and is passed on from generation to generation. However, its function has been gradually limited to art with the increasing use of typewriters and computers.

Chinese calligraphy was added to the Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2009 by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).