Yang Dongping, a professor with the Beijing Institute of Technology, said competition for good secondary schools has increased Chinese children's academic burden, harmed their mental and physical health and widened inequality in education.

He said nine-year compulsory education aimed to provide equal educational opportunity. But the current practice has pushed them into the misery of numerous after-school classes, contests and training for certificates.

"It has legalized money-for-education and power-for-education," Yang complained in a blog entry on enrollment-oriented classes or contests, especially "Olympic math," saying that the harm of such classes to children was even worse than "pornography, gambling and drug abuse."

"Why did I say so? Pornography, gambling and drug abuse only affect a limited number of people. But the "Olympic math" class as well as other extracurricular classes in the name of selecting elite students has made prisoners of numerous children, harming a whole generation."

His blog ignited massive public complaints about extracurricular classes as well as education system. So far, his blog has received more than 480,000 visits and nearly 7,000 comments

In response to public complaints, Xu Mei, spokeswoman of the Ministry of Education, said the ministry opposed selecting students through tests during the compulsory education years.

"To link primary or middle school enrollment with the 'Olympic math' class or other certificates for special talent is against the intention of the Ministry of Education," she said.

Yang said compulsory education mainly fell under the jurisdiction of local educational authorities. "Local authorities have taken quite a few measures to stop schools from selecting students, but most of the measures do not have long-term effects."

Yang posted a proposal on his blog, calling on the authorities to bridge gaps among schools so as to achieve a balanced development of schools in the same areas.

He also urged local authorities to strictly follow the Law on Compulsory Education and prohibit schools from selecting students and taking enrollment fees.

China has about 107 million primary students, of whom about 40 percent are in urban areas. As for about 67 million primary school students in rural areas, Yang said: "It's a totally different story."

"The key problem there is to prevent rural students from dropping out and rural compulsory education from withering" due to insufficient funding, he said.

Sun Yunxiao, a researcher on child education for 37 years, said China's children now enjoy greater material comfort than their parents' generation, but they are more emotionally fragile. "They feel very much stressed by academic pressure."

"Childhood in China, in general, is becoming increasingly unhappy," said Sun, who is also deputy head of the China Youth and Children Research Center.

A fair number of surveys found that China's primary and secondary school pupils were slaves to homework and after-school classes.

Every two out of three primary school students in Beijing don't get 10 hours of sleep, as required by the Ministry of Education, according to a blue paper released by the Beijing Academy of Social Science in March. One third of them also said they did not have enough sports time.

Sun said the load on students was not just a problem of education but was also a social problem. "Academic pressure is a result of increasing employment pressure and the public worship of high academic credentials."

A total of 5.59 million students graduated from universities last year. About 1 million of them were still struggling to find a job by the end of 2008, according to a report released by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences last December. Another 6.11 million college graduates will enter the job market this year.

"Intense competition in the job market has panicked the public," Sun said. "Most Chinese parents believe that high academic credentials mean greater job opportunities. Therefore the competition for prestigious universities was brought forward from high school to middle school, primary school, and even kindergarten."

Xu Xiangyu doesn't know anything about this. But he has stopped complaining to his mother about the math class.

"I don't think she cares how I feel," said the boy, who loves detective stories and martial arts and is now obsessed with British author Diana Kimpton's Cracking Codes.

He did not know his mother was struggling, too. "I really don't know whether I should let him quit or continue to push him," Huang said. "In Britain, his teacher said he is a math genius. But here his math teacher said he is just mediocre," she said.

Xu sometimes told his mother that he missed his school in Britain, where he found all the classes interesting and his only after-school class was football.

"I miss the school, too. At least he was more relaxed and confident there," Huang said.

(Xinhua News Agency May 31, 2009)