SHANGHAI: A Chinese boss ordered nine employees to do his 12-year-old daughter's homework, a report said, as office tyranny meshed with a parent's desire to see his child score well in the competitive school system.

“The leader said, 'Do some homework, it will be like practising',” one of the suffering subordinates told the Qianjiang Evening News.

The boss in the eastern city of Jinhua, whose name and organisation were not given, regularly asked workers to do maths problems and build small models, typically requiring two people to work overtime to finish the assignments.

But over the Chinese New Year holiday, an assignment to show changes in one's home town required nine people to paint pictures, take photos, produce a video and write an essay.

The employees said they tried to imitate the work of an elementary school student, making the quality lower than if adults had done it.

One of them, a 35-year-old man surnamed Wang, said he put himself in the mind of a young girl to write the essay. “I forced myself into an imaginary state,” he said.

The report did not mention any repercussions for the child or her father.

But one teacher told the newspaper: “This has completely deviated from the

original intent (of the assignment).”