Today's children have busy, tiring academic lives

As a reporter covering education news, I have written three long-form articles and several daily stories about how the government introduced fresh regulations related to after-school training institutions last year, as befits one of the hottest topics in the field of education.

Having interviewed students, teachers, parents, owners of institutions that provide extracurricular classes, and experts in education, I have come to the conclusion that today's primary and middle school students have a much busier and more tiring academic life than I did in the early part of the century.

That's not to say I didn't have to work hard in primary and middle school - competition to get into a good high school and university has always been fierce.