At three-and-a-half years old, Shanshan’s daughter is more than two years away from starting primary school, which begins in China at the age of six. But she has already spent two years at an early education centre in an effort to give her a head start in foreign languages before she goes to school.
“She was one-and-a-half and she didn’t even speak properly, but I was feeling pressure from my peers and from the internet and social media,” Shanshan said.
“We sent her to these courses where you basically have a teacher playing with the kids and talking in English. At the time, she didn’t even speak Chinese properly, but the idea was that children have a natural ability to pick it up. If you ask me now if it was helpful, I doubt it. But I don’t regret sending her there.”
Shanshan has a second daughter, aged one, and although she has not yet started out on her educational path, it will be just as intensive as that of her older sibling.
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Shanshan’s approach is typical where she lives in the Beijing district of Haidian, home to some of China’s top universities and the most educationally competitive place in the country.
With a population of more than 3 million, Haidian is the second biggest district in the capital and its most affluent, with residents enjoying the highest disposable income in the city. Technology giants Baidu and ByteDance have their headquarters here, along with the Chinese National Space Administration, the Beijing Aerospace Flight Control Centre and a host of electronics companies.
Tsinghua and Peking University are among the leading third-level institutions in Haidian, but it is competition for places at the district’s top secondary schools that drives tiger parents like Shanshan. Out of 20,000 children who leave primary school in Haidian every year, only a fraction will gain places at the six most prestigious secondary schools: the People’s Congress Affiliated Middle School, Tsinghua Affiliated Middle School, Peking University Affiliated Middle School, 101 Middle School, the First Normal University Affiliated Middle School and the Eleventh School.
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Shanshan and her husband both work for international companies in Beijing and both studied abroad, one in Britain and the other in Germany. Both were raised as only children in Haidian, where their parents still live.
Although she felt a lot of pressure to perform academically as a child, Shanshan believes that today’s parents face a more competitive environment. And when she hears what other parents are doing, she wonders if she is pushing her daughter hard enough.
“There is this competition between the parents because you’re on these group chats. As soon as you see this, you say, ‘Well, my kid is getting four violin classes a week.’ You think, ‘Well, maybe I should do this?’” she said.
“When my kid was only one, I had a group chat with all the parents in the early education centre and they said, ‘Here are other classes in that building which are very good and you need to send your kids to.’ So my kid started to learn skating during the winter break, although some of my friends said it was too early for her because she wouldn’t have enough strength maybe in her legs. But I asked my kid first if she was interested. Then I said, ‘Okay I need to give her this.’”
Meng is another Haidian native who decided to raise his child in the district and put him through its competitive education system. His son is now 10 years old and he attends a primary school that feeds one of the top secondary schools and he is usually within the top five in his class.
“It starts before they are born. You have to buy a house first, near the school. An expensive house,” Meng said.
The competition for school places is all the fiercer since China’s technology companies moved to Haidian, bringing with them tens of thousands of highly educated newcomers with high aspirations for their children. Meng believes he and his wife, as only children who received all the resources their parents and grandparents could provide, owe it to their son to give him the best.
“What my wife and I do is to give the child more choices. So I push him, my wife pushes him. I need to push him to offer him more choices,” he said.
I remember when my son wanted to play football and he called his classmates, but nobody could go out with him because they were all focused on extra classes. I felt very sad because he had no friends to play football with
— Meng
“I was born in Haidian. I know that the pain – some competition is necessary, it’s essential. Whatever you face in middle school, you have to face in high school, you have to face in university, you have to face in society.”
Meng, who studied at Sheffield University, enjoyed the more relaxed lifestyle in Britain but he believes that China’s more competitive environment makes for a more dynamic economy. His parents urged him to study hard so that he could get a good job and make money, but his ambitions for his son are different.
“I think making money is not a good reason. You need to take more responsibility to make this country better. This is the difference,” he said.
“Because we’ve already got the house, we’ve got the car, we’ve got the standard of living. We are the third generation. But we still worry about the future. We still hope the child can achieve more than we did.”
Meng is confident that he and his wife, who is a teacher, have taken the right approach to raising their son and that growing up in Haidian will prepare him for the pressures of adult life. But he sometimes wishes they lived in another part of Beijing where the rhythm is slower.
“I remember when my son wanted to play football and he called his classmates, but nobody could go out with him because they were all focused on extra classes,” he said.
“I felt very sad because he had no friends to play football with.”
In the Chinese system, children start six years of compulsory primary school at the age of six, although most attend kindergarten from three years old. In Haidian, admission to primary schools is mostly based on residency status and ownership of property in the area, but some have affiliated kindergartens.
Children go to middle school between the ages 12 to 15 before taking an examination to enter high school for three years. Those who choose the academic track over the vocational one prepare in high school for the National College Entrance Examination, known as the Gaokao.
Officially, Haidian has abolished entrance exams for middle school and places are allocated to 12-year-olds leaving primary school according to a lottery. In practice, there is an elaborate system for admission to the top middle schools that takes account of performance in extracurricular activities.
“It’s officially a lottery. But there are backdoors because the schools all want good kids,” said Tao, whose 15-year-old son is at middle school.
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“The majority of them in Haidian pay attention to mathematics, maths competitions. That’s the way they’re trying to measure so-called intelligence or IQ. Other schools pay attention to English because that indicates that the family and the kids are persistent in learning and reading.”
A venture capitalist with a background in chemistry, and married to a microbiologist, Tao studied and worked in the United States; his son was four years old when the family moved back to China. Unlike many of his colleagues who lived abroad, Tao chose to put his son through the Chinese public education system rather than sending him to one of Beijing’s international schools.
The international route is more expensive but less competitive, and it is easier to win a place at most universities in Europe or the US than to gain admission to one of the top colleges in China. He enrolled his son in extra classes for maths, Chinese and English, sometimes sitting at the back of the classroom himself to take notes so he could help his son with homework later.
Tao defends intensive parenting on the basis that if his son did not perform well at school, he would feel less confident among his peers. The extra classes are designed to make regular school classes easier for the child and to help him with the subjects where he is weakest.
“I would say that a majority of kids are not as exceptional as the parents initially thought – ‘he is a genius, he can do things at the age of three’, something like that. But then at the age of 14 or 15, you give up on this illusion,” he said.
“I think by the age of nine or 10, we knew he was just a regular kid, he’s not that gifted in any particular area. I shouldn’t say that. He is one of a kind, every kid is. But looking back, I think it’s totally fine. The gifted kids are rare. If he sticks to the education plan, he could live a good life and he will enjoy happiness. Along with health, that’s our priority.”
Sometimes when I meet other parents, we test each other to explore what classes or courses they put their kids in. But we’re also aware that we are competitors. If I hear of a shortcut to making progress or of some material that’s really helpful, that sort of information I would keep confidential so that only I get the benefit of it. That’s the system
— Yinqian
Yinqian’s son is 17 and preparing to take the Gaokao this summer with a view to winning a place at Tsinghua University to study aeronautic engineering. She described a typical school day, which sees her son getting up around 6am because they live quite a distance from Beijing 101 Middle School, which is also a leading high school in Haidian.
“I actually wake up at 5.30am to prepare breakfast and put it in a box and then we leave home around 6.40am and he eats breakfast in the car as we drive to school,” she said.
I don’t think he has any spare time to make friends. Of course, at the school he has friends he talks to during class breaks for sure I believe. But there’s no time for other friends or to make new friends
— Yinqian
“School starts at 7.30am and I pick him up at 9.30 in the evening. We usually arrive home around 10pm. Then after a short break he studies again, usually until 11pm or midnight.”
Apart from his after-school classes from Monday to Friday, her son studies for between 10 and 12 hours each day on Saturday and Sunday. He will sometimes take a break for about 30 minutes for “productive sports” like running before going back to his books.
“Sometimes when I meet other parents, we test each other to explore what classes or courses they put their kids in. But we’re also aware that we are competitors. If I hear of a shortcut to making progress or of some material that’s really helpful, that sort of information I would keep confidential so that only I get the benefit of it. That’s the system,” she said.
Yinqian put her son through piano and tennis classes when he was younger and he enjoys playing the piano to relieve some of the tension. But he has no time for sports or social life – and when I asked if he has friends, she hesitated.
“I don’t know. I don’t think he has any spare time to make friends. Of course, at the school he has friends he talks to during class breaks for sure I believe. But there’s no time for other friends or to make new friends,” she said.
Her son is still a little behind in his progress towards a Gaokao result that would guarantee him a place at Tsinghua, but Yinqian is confident he will get into one of the top universities. He will move out of home when he goes to college. After devoting so much of her time to supervising her son’s education, Yingian’s life will change too.
“I really haven’t been thinking about that because my current goal is just to get through the exam,” she said. “But I’m trying to imagine that maybe in September, when he goes to university, I will have my whole life back. It will belong to myself. Every night, I can watch my movies or chat with friends.
“I’m very happy about that. Well, I will be, definitely.”
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