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Thinking outside the box

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For nine-year-old Shenzhen boy Cao Hua, school classes start at 3pm sharp - when his father, Cao Yingqiu, a professional investor, finishes monitoring the mainland's stock market online. Earlier in the day, Hua reads books and does his homework. He also takes lessons outside in chess, fencing and piano - all his own choices.

Hua is one of the mainland's swelling ranks of children being schooled at home, by their parents or by tutors their parents trust.

There is a growing community of such families in many cities, according to the China Homeschooling Association, an NGO founded in 2010 by a Zhejiang entrepreneur and father whose two children study at home.

More parents are choosing to educate their own children rather than put them through the mainland's much-criticised school system, which they claim stymies creativity and the development of personality. And, while these families form a small but determined challenge to the education system, the quality and curriculum of homeschooling is unmonitored as the country has no laws governing it.

'More than 4,000 families have been registered as members of the association, and we estimate that about 1,000 of them are currently homeschooling' its founder Xu Xuejin said in an interview with the Jiangnan City Daily. There are no exact statistics on homeschooled children on the mainland, but many parents express a similar motivation: their dislike of the current education system.

'My son attended a school for half a semester,' said Cao Yingqiu. 'He left home just after 7am and came back home when it was almost dark. You don't have to work so hard at such a young age.'

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