'Kumon calls it the helicopter curve,' he said.

Instead, Kumon has dedicated this year to 'Jet-Plane Progress', which lets students spend more time at lower levels to build up a good foundation.

Under the learning system, students will have greater success at higher levels later on.

Kumon was founded by Toru Kumon in 1958 in Japan. It now has more than 3.85 million students and is one of the biggest mathematics and language teaching centres worldwide.

Kumon Hong Kong was established in 1988. It provides programmes in mathematics, English and Chinese. A study conducted earlier by Hong Kong Kumon indicates that the Jet-Plane theme suits Hong Kong students. The study carried out between April 2004 and February last year among 370 students at eight centres showed that a lower starting point and more worksheets could help students learn faster.

Mr Shum said the Jet-Plane Progress could help students regain their interest and foundation in learning.

'Hong Kong students do not have the motivation to learn,' he said. 'They just sit in the classrooms and wait for the teachers to spoon-feed them. Thus, students don't have an interest in learning and many are unable to do the work in their grades. We want to set up a firmer foundation for them.'

Leung Yi-Kei, a primary school teacher and mother of two, said the curriculum at local grammar schools did not suit all students.

'Many of my students are hindered by the school curriculum,' she said.

'Some of them are very smart, and do better than required by the curriculum. But many others are weaker and they cannot follow the curriculum.

'Since most of the students who have bad academic results are already weak in their lower primary years, it becomes harder and harder for them to catch up with the class in higher grades.'

Ms Leung said her children, who are in Primary One and Five, often made careless mistakes when doing mathematics.

'I know that there are many things that you cannot rush. If they make a minor mistake in one of the steps, they will not get the right answers. So I think basic calculation skills are the most important.'

Mr Shum said that despite the time and attention focused on the lower levels, Jet-Plane Progress was actually aimed at helping students learn the most in the shortest possible time.

'It won't work if we just push the students forward relentlessly,' he said, 'More time in low-level learning builds up a better foundation and [students] can learn the necessary life skills for learning.

'This way, when they go to higher levels, they can learn faster and can achieve better results.'

For Kumon, the Jet-Plane Progress is also a consolidation of existing methods. Kumon divides the system into five steps.

First, Kumon shares its vision and values with parents and students and teaches the students to be disciplined.

Then students acquire good learning habits up to level C in Kumon's curriculum through a low starting point and a large number of worksheets.

From level C to F, students become independent learners. They have the ability to identify and correct their mistakes, write out the steps clearly, study the examples on their own and have a clear goal for their progress.

After level F, students gain the ability to practise self-feedback by planning their own study projections, and are able to advance beyond J.

Finally, from level J onwards, the students' goal is to complete the programme and develop a concrete target for the future.

Mr Shum said the Jet-Plane Progress taught more than just academic skills.

'Through the Jet-Plane Progress, students learn not only calculation skills but also the life skill of character-building,' he said.

'From our experiences, after two to three years in Kumon, students undergo big changes in character. They gain more confidence from their learning and they want to help others.

'Then they learn how to care about other people and the world.'

Kumon defines a life skill as the ability to solve problems. According to Mr Shum, the skills of comprehension and analysis are essential to good problem-solving capabilities.

'[Students] first have to comprehend the problem,

and then analyse the situation

to find out the best solution,'

he said.

'The language courses can train their comprehension skills and the mathematics programme teaches them how to think logically and how to solve problems.

'We always recommend parents enrol their children in at least two programmes in the long run - mathematics and at least one of the language programmes. That's why we only have language and mathematics courses and we are not going to run courses like science or history.

'We hope that after this Jet-Plane Progress, all our students will know why they are in their level and will all have the desire to be completers.'