In the past few years, county-level governments across China, coordinated by the central government, have developed and implemented the first two phases of the Three-year Preschool Education Action Plan, and made remarkable progress.
However, preschool education remains the weakest area in our education system. The shortage of resources for preschool education is particularly stark. As the Chinese economy starts shifting gears and the two-child policy is adopted, parents are increasingly demanding more and higher-quality preschool education. As such, a priority remains to seek and provide broader resources to boost general preschool education (i.e. equitable and widely accessible education provided predominantly by state-run preschools and partly by privately-owned establishments).
Reforming the supply side of preschool education has become a burning issue while there is an urgent need to clarify duties and accountability of preschool education suppliers.
The Government has of course a key role to play in the development of preschool education, but only alongside others, and more stakeholders should be encouraged to participate. For example, state-owned enterprises will be given support to open and operate their own kindergartens; it will be possible for vacant primary and middle schools in rural areas to be converted into town-level and village-level kindergartens; and urban communities will be better equipped to set up kindergartens for the neighborhood.
Governments at all levels should develop comprehensive plans to coordinate the development of local preschool education establishments, to reach the target of giving more than 85% of the country’s preschool children access to general preschool education. For state-run kindergartens, national and local standards should be developed in order to standardize their construction, facilities and equipment, faculty qualification and salaries, and operational expenditure etc. Also, a series of enabling measures need to be taken to boost the development of privately-owned preschool establishments, such as service outsourcing by governments, financial incentives and rent reduction/waivers. Measures also include dispatching state-run preschool teachers to work in privately-owned preschool establishments, providing teacher training and offering instruction and guidelines on pedagogy and research.
(Abridged comments made by Yi Lingyun, deputy director and research associate of the Basic Education Research Center of the National Institute of Education Sciences)
