out home education and thus make errors, " said Ding Rong, a teacher from the Fourth Middle School of Beijing.

After a pupil was beaten to death by his mother Last year in Northwest

hina's Qinghai Province, a survey was made in a Beijing primary school. Of the 36 parents surveyed, everybody knew of the incident yet none were aware of any defects in their system of home education.

Surprisingly, some said they would follow suit if their children failed to study properly.

"In this sense, parents' schools are badly needed, " said Zhen Yan, deputy general-secretary of Beijing Research Association of Home Education, which is in charge of more than 3, 500 parents' schools in the city.

The purpose of the schools, she said, was to help parents to establish proper position for their children in a family and society and treat them in a more enlightened way.

The schools provided a series of lectures on "how to educate your child properly? advice given by experts and "Fumu Bidu" ("How to become good parents") and a monthly magazine published in Beijing with a circulation of 600, 000.

"I never thought I would re-enter school, ?said Xiao Chengjun, a 40-year-old woman worker, "I was taken aback when I was first asked the question 'Do you really know your child?'"

Jiang Bo, her 14-year-old son, was a second-year student of Hujialou Middle School in Beijing's Chaoyang District. Of six courses, he failed three of his first term exams. Xiao got angry and beat him, but he showed no improvement.

It was not until she took courses in a parents' school that she realized beating is pointless. The following term, Jiang Bo succeeded in all his lessons and helped teach his mother English.

"Children are easily affected," said Ding Rong, "the disharmony, and often the disputes in a family places the child in an awkward position. "

Parents, who are the first teachers of their children, need not only to instruct, but to.be educated, even by their children, said an expert.

One pupil complained in a composition that his father, a chain smoker, always left the smell of smoke in the living room and he could not do his homework there.

Another wrote that his father often played mahjong and the noise kept him awake most of the night.

"It's the father's fault not to educate his son himself," is an old saying. "But, it's also the father' s fault if he sets his son a bad example, " said Zhen Yan.

Since China pursues the policy of "one child for one couple", many parents are expecting too much from their children.

In Taoranting Primary School, Beijing , s Xuanwu District, 423 parents, over 87 per cent of the total surveyed, wanted their children to become university students. About half of them threaiened to punish their children if they did not pass their exams.

A parents' school set up by the First Experimental Primary School suggested that parents allow their children to take over some household duties on Sundays to build up their sense of responsibility.

Some parents admitted they ignored the physiological and psychological changes in their children and thus treated them with beatings and scoldings.

A parent said, "After attending the class, I know more about my child and she also understands me more. "

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