Whilst teaching methods may be different and pupils spend a very long day in a Chinese middle school I found the facilities and equipment in some "inner" city schools way ahead of many schools that I've seen elsewhere.

My experience is somewhat limited to city schools in major cities in Guangdong Province which are not necessarily representative of schools in the Chinese countryside or elsewhere in China, I don't know.

I am impressed with the teacher's desks in particular which were very different to those in regular UK classroom's even when compared to some university lecture rooms.

Desks seemed to be designed for each type of classroom with built-in technology and cabled to control the "environment" in the classroom. By this I mean projector consoles, PC controls for pupil monitors, sound systems, electric screens rather than interactive whiteboards etc.

Many classrooms had microphone systems to reinforce the teachers voice as classes of 60 or more pupils were common.

Standard classrooms were well equipped with projectors and sound but there was little room for books and bags as the desks were small and mostly in pairs.

IT suites and language laboratories had a mix of conventional PC desking and also some stunning and colourful modern desk layouts with a very airy feel to the room.

There were a large number of well equipped laboratories with their own prep rooms and storage for physics, chemistry and biology etc .

There were others wired especially for electrical and electronics experiments.

I liked the novel seat storage systems seen on some desks to aid room cleaning.

The chemistry and biology labs had air extraction systems at each position which I must admit I've not seen before in a school.

The biology labs were extremely well stocked with jars of specimens including fetuses.

An interesting feature was the use of CCTV cameras which were explained to be used during exams to monitor cheating, but I noticed that were evident in every classroom and recorders were installed in a central CCTV and server suite.

The library had a wide selection of books and the language suite not only had a laboratory but also a "chatting" area for oral skills practice.

Overall I was really very impressed and learned about some different concepts which may well be applied in our designs for the future.

David Edis-Bates, has spent more than 30 years in export related activities around the world, lived in Taiwan for 4 years in the 70's and in China for the past 5 years. Taught in further education for several years and is currently CEO Edis Trading (HK) Limited http://www.edistrading.hk