"We should comprehensively promote the high-quality development of early childhood education, and make early childhood education universal and free. Recently, Li Guohua, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and vice chairman of the Shanghai Municipal Committee of the Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang, brought a proposal on promoting the high-quality development of early childhood education and universal free education, suggesting that China's early childhood education should be gradually promoted from "universal and inclusive" to "universal and free".
The motion points out that at present, China's demographic situation has undergone important changes. Some areas have stopped recruiting preschool teachers, reduced the staff, and many preschool institutions have closed, suspended, merged, and transferred due to insufficient enrollment. In view of these circumstances, Li Guohua put forward suggestions such as gradually promoting the popularization of free early childhood education and promoting the balanced development of urban and rural areas.
Admission to kindergarten is free, which is of course a good thing for parents. Once, it was difficult for public kindergartens to enter kindergartens, and private kindergartens were expensive, which was once one of the people's livelihood problems that people strongly reflected. After years of efforts, this problem has been greatly alleviated in recent years. According to the data released by the Ministry of Education, in 2023, there will be 27 kindergartens in the country440,000, of which 23 are inclusive kindergartens640,000, accounting for 86 kindergartens in the country16%；Inclusive kindergarten in kindergarten children 3717010,000 people, accounting for 90 percent of the country's kindergarten children81%。It can be seen that in terms of "universal and inclusive", preschool education for young children has made great achievements.
Of course, education can never be given too much importance. Early childhood education is an important part of education and affects a person's life. Promoting the high-quality development of early childhood education and making early childhood education universal and free of charge is undoubtedly a policy direction worth looking forward to. Especially in today's declining fertility rate and people's increasing attention to education, high-quality and free early childhood education will surely become a popular livelihood welfare. However, how to achieve this goal still needs to be carefully considered.
First of all,Free does not mean that there is no cost, to promote the popularization of free early childhood education, we must first calculate the "family account". It is free for the people, and it is an additional expenditure for the relevant departments. In recent years, China's investment in education has continued to increase. Since 2012, the proportion of national fiscal expenditure on education to GDP has remained above 4% for ten consecutive years, and education has become the largest expenditure of the general public budget.
The figure of 4% may seem inconspicuous at first glance, but considering the total GDP of our country, such a large expenditure is already quite considerable. In order to achieve universal and free early childhood education, it is necessary to continue to increase investment in education, so can our financial "family" afford it? This needs to be carefully demonstrated by the relevant departments.
Secondly,Free of charge not only requires economic investment, but also affects the whole body, which may involve many changes in the system and mechanism. For example, since early childhood education is universal and free, should the ownership and characterization of early childhood education institutions be changed? Should pre-school education be integrated into compulsory education? How to clarify the relationship between public and private parks? How to narrow the gap between regions and between urban and rural areas in the development of preschool education ......
In response to similar suggestions, in 2016, the Ministry of Education responded that compulsory education has the characteristics of universality, free and compulsory, and the main appeal of the people to preschool education is to hope that the first to assume more responsibility and solve the problem of "difficult to enter the kindergarten" and "expensive to enter the kindergarten" as soon as possible. There are still different views on whether pre-school education should be mandatory, or how long pre-school education should be mandatory, and further research and demonstration are needed.
Indeed, we all look forward to the early arrival of "universal and free early childhood education", but in order to do good things, we must implement it step by step under the premise of careful research and demonstration. Of course, bringing this topic to the public discussion on the field is also conducive to collecting public opinion widely and promoting the development of early childhood education.
*: Red Star News.