The wonder years: inside China’s ‘cram schools’

It’s the last day of winter school holidays yet this classroom in downtown Shanghai is packed.

As the first snow of the season falls outside, softening the edges of China’s commercial capital, a group of 13-year-olds are finishing up a three-hour maths tutorial. Like children the world over, they slouch on their desks, twirl pencils and generally look without interest at the whiteboard filled with quadratic equations.