Students study at traditional Chinese private schools

China's annual national college entrance exams will take place across the country this weekend. This year's exam will be taken by 9.39 million students, up 270,000 from 2013. For many, the exams are a turning point in life, but in some areas, students are choosing not to prepare for any tests. They attend traditional Chinese private schools instead of primary schools or middle schools.

These students are from 4 to 15 years old. In the class they are repeated reading classic literatures like Confucius or Mengzi for hours. This is an old style of study, the same as the private schools or Sishu in Chinese ancient times. He Yayingxue left the primary school after the year three. Since then, she has been study in private schools for four years.

"When I was in the third year of primary school, I had a lot of home work. Sometimes I was doing homework until 1am. My dad felt it was too much pressure, and sent me here." He said.

15 year old Li Mengjing has a dream to study fashion design in the college. After finishing the secondary school, she decided to take two years learning classic literatures and art before returning to the high school.

"Many people don't have chance to learn the Chinese traditional culture and knowledge. I think it will be helpful for my future if I can learn some." Li said.

In this English class, students are reading "a Midsummer Night's Dream from Shakespeare. But most students don't understand the content.

"The education is not to tell them the meaning of the classic literatures, As these children are growing up with reading classic books, they will gradually understand the profound meaning. Later this knowledge will benefit them for a life time. This is not exams skills, but intelligence." Liu Xiang, school master of Suzhou Leqian Traditional Chinese School, said.

The school is running in a private residential villa, where more than 20 kids study and live together. But for parents, to send their children here was a difficult decision.

"My daughter is also self learning math course. I was planning to send her back to primary school if she can not catch the progress. But so far she is doing well." Student's mother Yi Zhifang said.

More traditional private schools like Leqian are opening across China. But so far they are not legally recognized. There may also be problems when students want to enter higher level schools or colleges.

"Traditional private schools have positive impacts in the society, because now our education models are unified, which is exam oriented. But regulations on self study and private schools are incomplete. The government should be more supportive on this." Wu Hua from Zhejiang University said.