If you stand in front of Taipei’s main train station, you will see many buxibans (or ‘cram schools’) along the road. Each day after dark, a large number of students flood into these buxibans. Seeing this overcrowded street scene, full of anxious students, teachers, and parents, you will recognize how prevalent supplementary education is in Taiwan.
It is believed that the majority of secondary students attend this kind of for-profit institute to seek supplemental drilling and practice after a long day at their regular schools. Unlike their western counterparts who favour extracurriculum activities such as sports or games, teenagers in Taiwan attend buxiban instead due to a mixture of exam anxiety, peer-group pressure, and high parental.academic expectation.
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