Back to school around the world

Ding started school on Aug. 19 instead of the official Sept. 1 start date; her school is anxiously adding on extra days to prepare students for the examination. She will study mathematics, English, Chinese, physics, chemistry, and politics - the subjects of the test in June. Students will strive to qualify for a city or national magnet school, which will guarantee a spot at a magnet university.

This year, Ding says, she'll feel pressure from parents, classmates, and teachers, and will spend every waking minute memorizing textbook material.

Still, there's a bright spot for her: "I was alone at home during the summer, and now I'll be able to see my friends again," she says. "So I'm 60 percent unhappy and 40 percent happy that I'll be going back to school."

- Jiang Xueqin

Riudoms, Spain

Eugenia Perea is totally at ease doing nothing during the summer. "It's time to relax, isn't it?" she asks. "I work hard enough during the year."

Judging from the list of her extracurriculars, she certainly does. She practices piano at a conservatory, studies French at a language academy, hosts a weekly radio program with a friend of hers, and acts at the local theatre. This fall promises to be particularly busy, as her last year in school will focus on passing the Spanish college entrance exam, the selectividad.

Eugenia is from the small town of Riudoms in Catalonia, the Spanish region whose capital is Barcelona and whose official language is Catalan.

"I like the humanities," she says, a preference her schedule bears out: Catalan, Castilian (more popularly known as Spanish), English, Latin, Greek, Spanish history, modern world history, math, and physical education. Except for Castilian, classes are taught in Catalan.

"I want to be a translator and an interpreter," she says.

Until they begin to study elective courses in their last years of school, Spanish students stay in the same classroom, while teachers shuffle after each period. It makes for a tight group of friends. Eugenia's class has 23 students, and she goes out with many of them on the weekends. "We meet up around 11:30 or midnight," she says, "and go out to the discos until about 3."

Two summers ago, Eugenia and her friends decided to make a movie. "We had nothing else to do," she explains. Shot on video, it was about a rich girl kidnapped by three other girls. "It's a comedy," she says. "I was the rich girl." Local radio journalists who saw the film invited her to do a weekly radio show about movies. "My favorite ones are Woody Allen movies," she says. And her top choice? "Manhattan Murder Mystery."

- Otto Pohl

Phnom Penh, Cambodia

During his two-month summer vacation, Heng Vanda plays soccer morning, afternoon, and evening at a stadium near his house. Most of his friends sprint back and forth barefoot on the asphalt. He loans a left-handed friend his left shoe.

For many adolescents in the capital, September means that, instead of pulling on shorts every morning and heading for the stadium, they have to put on blue trousers and white shirts and head in the opposite direction: to Bak Touk High School.

Though public schooling in Cambodia is free, school enrollment and attendance for many youths in the countryside (and for poorer kids in the city) depends on the growing season, or on how much they have to help their parents work. Bak Touk High School's director says about 3 percent of the 8,293 students miss classes. But Heng Vanda says during some seasons, empty seats are common in his 60-student class: "Many students don't start coming to class until after the water festival in November."

Page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5