What is "buxiban"

Buxiban (, lit. "remedial education classes") are cram schools in Mainland China and Taiwan.

It is a prevalent belief that parents should send their children to all kinds of cram schools in order for their children to remain competitive with their peers of the same age. As a result, many children of school-going age in Mainland China or Taiwan have schedules packed with all sorts of remediation from cram school.

Buxiban teach a variety of subjects, including math, Chinese characters, and English as a foreign language. Studying at several buxiban is widely perceived as necessary to get a high-enough college entrance exam score to attend prestigious universities.

Some buxiban are located in English-speaking countries. Most of those in North America are operated by the local communities. There, they are equivalent to hoshū jugyō kō (hoshūkō) in ethnic Japanese communities and hagwon in ethnic Korean communities. Buxiban began appearing in North America in the 1880s.