Packed schedule

Youyou (not her real name), a 7-year-old girl in Beijing, attended six extracurricular courses during the winter vacation, and since the beginning of the new semester, the first-grader has continued with her busy schedule.

She attends the extra classes－English, math, dancing, piano, drawing and gymnastics－after school and at weekends.

"I know my daughter is under a lot of pressure, but I don't know what to do. There are just too many after-school classes and everyone is signing up," said Wang Lijuan, Youyou's mother, adding that ads for extra classes can be seen everywhere; in the subway, at bus stops and on elevators.

"I can't help but think that I would somehow be failing my daughter if I did not send her to the classes."

Even though Youyou has only just started school, Wang does not want her to get left-behind, face ridicule from other students or lose interest in her studies.

Extracurricular classes are not cheap. They usually cost about 200 yuan an hour, although some one-on-one "interest classes"－such as learning piano or dancing－can cost as much as 1,000 yuan per hour.

Wang estimated that she spends more than 100,000 yuan a year on Youyou's extra classes, which began three years ago when the girl first attended kindergarten.

"My husband and I do not make a lot of money, but we spare no effort or expense on promoting our child's education," she said.

Although there is heated debate about the effect of extracurricular classes, there is no doubt that their growing popularity is generating huge revenue for providers.

For example, in the first nine months of last year, the profits of TAL Education Group rose by almost 55 percent year-on-year to about $140 million.

The rise came as the number of students attending TAL's classes surged to about 5 million, a rise of more than 86 percent from the same period in 2016, according to reports in Southern Weekly.