Nearly 90 percent of preschoolers attended extra classes to learn pinyin, English and mathematics to prepare themselves for primary schools, despite repeated please from experts that it was unnecessary.
The report, led by Shanghai Education Commission, surveyed 1,323 parents and 939 kindergarten teachers in six districts, looking into children's preparation for entering primary school.
The report showed that 88 percent of preschoolers had attended extra classes out of kindergarten and 32 percent attended more than three classes. In an extreme case, a child attended 10 different classes because his parent did not want him to lag behind others when he entered primary school.
Learning pinyin, a phonetic system used to read Chinese characters, topped the list with 22.75 percent of children taking lessons in it.
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