Primary school students in Beijing studied four and half hours after school, on average, every day in 2009, 30 minutes longer than their peers in Shanghai and Guangdong province, a new survey has found.

The survey, released yesterday by the Institute of Social Science at Peking University, also showed that Beijing students spend slightly more time studying (including time spent in school, at after-school classes and doing homework) than students from other areas of China.

The survey results are based on questionnaires answered by 1,929 households in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong.

Beijing students studied for 12.7 hours per day on average in 2009, according to the survey. The number was 12.4 for Shanghai and 11.4 for Guangdong.

The findings contrast with the traditional belief that students in Beijing face less educational pressure than students from the rest of China because of the high number of top-level middle schools, high schools and universities in the capital and Beijing's high college enrollment rate.

Pan Qiqi, a resident in Haidian district, said although it is easy get into a middle school, high school or college in Beijing, parents pressure their children to get into the most prestigious school possible.

Pan said her son, an 8-year-old second year student in Shijia primary school, spends about two hours a day on homework. She also makes him study English, math and essay-writing for six hours every Saturday.

Sunday is devoted to calligraphy sessions. "I am reluctant to make my son to study so many things every day, and I can tell he's not happy," said Pan. "But when competition is so fierce, what else can we do?"

According to the Beijing Education Examinations Authority, 49 percent of Beijing applicants were admitted to universities and 80 percent got into some type of higher education institution in 2009.

These enrollment rates were higher than those of students from most other major cities in China.