With the continuous decline in the number of births in China, the field of preschool education is facing unprecedented challenges. Recently, the Hunan Provincial Department of Education issued the "Notice on Adjusting and Optimizing the Layout of Primary and Secondary Schools and Kindergartens in Response to Changes in the School-age Population", proposing to organize the establishment and withdrawal of kindergartens in an orderly manner and optimize the allocation of educational resources. It is reported that this is the first province in China to propose to adjust the layout of kindergartens at the provincial level. Nationwide, the phenomenon of kindergarten closure is not uncommon, and in some areas there is even a "hard to find" enrollment dilemma. In the face of the existential crisis of kindergartens, how to deal with them?What is the direction of development of preschool education?
The demographic changes behind the wave of kindergarten closures.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, in 2022, the number of births in China will only be 9.56 million, a year-on-year decrease of 18%, a new low in the past 30 years. This means that since 2017, the number of newborns in our country has decreased by 1 million 2 million per year compared with the previous year, and these are the "lost students" of kindergartens.
The first impact of the decline in the number of births is pre-school education. According to the Ministry of Education's "2022 National Statistical Bulletin on the Development of Education", in 2022, there will be 28 kindergartens in the country920,000, a decrease of 5,610 over the previous year, a decrease of 190%。This is the second year in a row that the number of kindergartens in the country has declined. In the areas where the new population is concentrated in urban areas, some kindergartens are still facing the situation of "one child is hard to find", but in rural areas and some areas with a large population outflow, kindergartens have encountered the enrollment problem of "one child is hard to find".
In a first-tier city like Beijing, it is more common to have difficulty in enrolling kindergartens. Wang Li (pseudonym), the director of an inclusive private kindergarten in Beijing's Fengtai District, told China News Weekly that since 2022, her kindergarten has been facing difficulties in recruiting students, and the number of students may decline further this year. She said that when recruiting students last year, it was found that some private kindergartens even "sent" parents to other kindergartens to grab students, "such as the introduction of preferential policies, parents can bring a few children from other kindergartens, how much tuition is reduced, parents will go to the surrounding kindergartens to persuade other parents in the name of consultation, to lead their children over." The kindergarten where she was located had students who were "attracted away" in this way.
Greater competitive pressure comes from a nearby public kindergarten, originally, most of Beijing's public kindergartens have strict restrictions on the qualifications for entering the kindergarten, generally must have a Beijing household registration, but since last year, this public park has lowered the enrollment threshold, not only no household registration requirements, but even no longer require "four certificates" (employment certificate, actual residence certificate, family registration booklet, Beijing residence permit), "so many parents paid us the registration fee, and finally was poached by the public park." The public park "made up" several times last year, which made Wang Li very devastated, "As soon as it made up, we lacked children, and just recruited two children, and three were taken away by the other party." In the end, statistics found that more than 60 of the children who were interested in signing up in her kindergarten were "snatched away".
In the east and west of the city, the old high-quality public parks are more concentrated, and these kindergartens are still the first choice for parents to let their children in. However, according to ** reports, even these public parks have been dissatisfied.
In Shandong, a province with a large population, this year ushered in a cold winter of kindergarten enrollment. A teacher who works in a public kindergarten in Jimo District, Qingdao City, bluntly said that several public kindergartens include enrollment in the teacher's year-end assessment, "recruiting a student, adding some points to the personal grading system."
In Hunan, in order to cope with the change of the school-age population, the Provincial Department of Education proposed to organize the establishment and withdrawal of kindergartens in an orderly manner. In the new urban population concentration area of the new, renovated and expanded a number of public kindergartens, new residential areas in urban areas with kindergartens should be run into public parks, rural areas in principle no longer add kindergartens. Do a good job in township public central parks, relying on township public central parks to implement integrated management of village kindergartens (points).
Optimization and adjustment of the distribution of educational resources.
Behind the wave of kindergarten closures, it reflects the mismatch between the distribution of educational resources and the change of population structure in China. Several experts pointed out that to solve this problem, optimization and adjustment need to be done at multiple levels.