As part of its efforts to develop a high-quality education system, the MOE recently issued the Guidelines on Vigorously Promoting the Science-based Transition from Preschool to Primary School.

To address the long-existing discontinuity between preschools and primary schools, the document lays out a series of measures, including the enhancement of coordination and alignment in curriculum and teaching practice between the two education levels and the establishment of joined-up transition research mechanism.

The Guidelines stress the need to facilitate the transition in a more systematic and comprehensive manner. It requests local educational authorities to incorporate the transition-related work into the basic education curricula reforms and evaluation mechanisms, push forward closer collaboration between kindergartens and primary schools, and strengthen transition-related research. It further requires that a number of pilot kindergartens and primary schools be selected at county/district level across the country, to start carrying out the reform from the autumn semester this year. It also plans for reforms to be rolled out nationwide from the autumn semester of 2022.

The Guidelines include two annexes – Annex 1: Guidance Notes on School-Readiness Education in Preschools and Annex 2: Guidance Notes on Adaptive Education in Primary Schools. The Annex 1 emphasizes that, as transition is a process that happens over time, school-readiness education should be offered throughout the three-year early childhood education. It underscores the importance of equipping senior kindergarteners with a combination of dispositions, skills and knowledge needed in primary schools, such as social and communication skills, self-help skills, awareness of rules and routines, instead of intensive academic skill training alone. On the other hand, Annex 2 requires primary schools to increase play and exploration opportunities for first-graders to prepare them for more formal instructional practices.