The school education in the city, like everywhere else, is known for excessive study load and tough, sometimes unnecessary, exams.

The Beijing municipal education commission laid out rules in 2008 stipulating that schools are not allowed to organize any kind of training classes.

Yet extracurricular classes remain ubiquitous.

Although Beijing's policy is for children to go to the nearest school, each middle school has its own enrollment mechanism which results in children taking different exams to increase their chances of entering good schools.

In October, the Chengdu government banned the so-called "Olympic mathematics" that was linked to the middle school entrance exam.

Yet the Olympic mathematics score is still a very important measure when it comes to whether a student is accepted at a school in Beijing.

METRO reporter Wang Wei recently spoke with Sun Hongyan, president of China Youth and Children Research Center, about the city's obsession with exams.

Is there a solution to extracurricular classes?

The pressure of middle school entrance exam is the major reason for incessant extracurricular classes.

The pressure comes from the strong aspiration of parents to have their children admitted by top middle schools, which are a gateway to prestigious universities and a decent job.

The most important thing is to change the society's mentality that only students with excellent marks are good students and companies only employ graduates from top universities.

Otherwise, students as well as parents will become victims of entrance examinations.