Children's individual qualities may differ, but under the stress of a heavy study workload, the vast majority are surely not happy. (Hsueh Chi-kuang)

Some people say, childhood only comes once, so you should let children play to their hearts' content, and learn joyfully.

Others say, adversity spurs vitality, while comfort breeds sloth. Compared with young people in mainland China, where assiduous study is all the rage, the next generation growing up in prosperous Taiwan are gradually losing their ability to compete.

Should childhood years be spent in happy play, or in diligent learning? Who can give guidance to parents, and answers to children?

It is a Wednesday, and like other primary school pupils in Taiwan, Yang Hsiang has the afternoon free from school. This fifth-grader at Taipei City's Heti Elementary sits at home in front of his computer, playing games with complete concentration. He says that Mummy only lets him watch TV and play computer games one hour each a day, and he has to be in bed with the lights out by half past nine. But how he spends the rest of his time is up to him. His younger sister, second-grader Yang Jung, has finished her homework and is on the balcony, playing on her swing and chatting to the dog. Only their elder brother Yang Shang, who is in his first year at junior high school, is not yet home from school.

None of the three Yang children has ever gone for extra tuition at a cram school, even though Yang Hsiang gets failing grades in English tests at school, and even though when Yang Shang began junior high school he initially had some difficulty adjusting and got failing grades in English and maths, despite having been top of his class in maths and excellent at science in elementary school, where before graduating he made sketches of all his classmates which were printed as a book for each of them. "It was their evaluation methods, using nothing but pencil-and-paper tests, that beat Yang Shang," says his mother Liu Min, who believes that school assessments only tell part of the story, and one shouldn't set too much store by them. She just tells her children that they have to find their own ways to adapt to this system.

"What matters to me is whether the children live well-ordered lives, have good manners, and are able to look after themselves," says Liu Min. In her view, academic attainment is illusory, for paper qualifications do not mean that somebody will be a capable worker. What will give children the ability to compete in the future? Liu Min believes the answer is not grades, but self-confidence.