Escaping a failing system

Mark Kitto has made China his home for the past 16 years, but he has decided to call it quits.

The Welshman has had more adventures than most on the mainland - it's not every expat that gets accused of being a spy and a Muslim separatist terrorist. But that is not why he is moving his family to Britain - the deciding factor is his children's education.

"It's the last straw," says Kitto. "I tell that to my Chinese friends and they understand that. Because if they could, they'd leave, too. Those that can [afford it] send their children to international schools."

That does not sound very different from the situation in Hong Kong, except that mainland schools are not quite in the same league.

Think 12-hour school days with meals - lunch and dinner - eaten by pupils at their desks in the classroom. A system where homework largely consists of practice test papers studied over the weekend, where scoring under 95 per cent is considered a failure and those with bad grades are punished. And that's just primary school.

For seven years Kitto - a former Welsh Guardsman and metals trader, and for several years a media mogul - has lived in Moganshan, a peaceful mountain retreat 2½ hours outside Shanghai. He first moved there in 2005 with his Chinese wife Joanna and two children.