Parents snap up summer study trips

Although the outbound-study trips will cost her around 70,000 yuan, she believes it's money well spent.

"He will learn things while having fun in a foreign country, which will open his eyes to the world and enable him to make new friends," she says.

Speaking about the effects of taking those study tours, Wang says her son has a better understanding of different cultures and has become more confident on such occasions as when he has to talk in public or participate in a performance.

"I will keep sending him on such trips so that he can see more places and get to know their culture and history," she says.

Enthusiasm for study tours is likely fueled by the fact that some middle schools in China have already put them under consideration when evaluating a student's comprehensive performance.

So far, several provinces, including Sichuan, Hunan and Guangdong, have integrated study travel into teaching programs for primary and middle schoolers.

A number of middle schools in Beijing have already developed study tours that cover Jiangsu province's Nanjing and Zhejiang province's Hangzhou, as well as Canada and Australia, for their students.

"The original purpose of bringing study tours into students' comprehensive performance evaluation is good, because the tour will broaden their knowledge and stimulate their interests," says Zhang.

"It's a good complement to closed-classroom education."

The education systems of many developed countries have schools that encourage study tours.

In Japan, numerous schools have well-established study tours for their students, while a considerable number of private schools in the UK, the US, Australia and New Zealand have arranged for students to take themed education tours.

However, Zhang cautions that it has to be voluntary on the students' part and parents should choose products based on their children's interests and the family's financial circumstances.

"In fact, study-tour prices are not necessarily all steep, and it is also not a case of the more expensive, the better the tour," Zhang says.