The pattern of preschool education resources should be dominated by public parks

The draft law on preschool education was recently submitted to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress for deliberation and is being solicited for public opinions. A strong preschool education law can ensure that preschool education adheres to the basic direction of public welfare and inclusive benefits, promotes the strengthening of relevant institutional mechanisms, improves the level of public services, and runs preschool education that the people are satisfied with.

First, it is necessary to establish an inclusive preschool education resource supply mechanism mainly organized by the government. In recent years, all localities have vigorously developed public parks, actively supported inclusive private parks, and established an inclusive resource supply system. However, on the whole, the resource pattern of preschool education development relying on private parks has not fundamentally changed, the problem of high fees and profit-seeking in private parks is still prominent, and the role of public parks as the main channel for guaranteeing the basics, bottom line, leading the direction and stabilizing fees is difficult to play. In this regard, a preschool education resource pattern with public parks as the main should be constructed. Incorporate the supply of public preschool education resources into the rural revitalization strategy, continue to increase the proportion of public kindergartens in rural areas, run township public center kindergartens, and meet the needs of rural school-age children to receive inclusive preschool education by relying on township center kindergartens to hold branches, village independent or joint kindergartens, and itinerant education. In cities and towns, fully consider the changes in the birth population and the development trend of urbanization, adapt to the law of population migration, promptly revise and adjust the supporting degree standards for the population in residential communities, promote the construction of kindergartens in urban communities and relocation areas that are compatible with the size of the population, and alleviate the contradictions such as the shortage of public degrees in cities and towns.

It should be emphasized that solving the property rights problem of supporting kindergartens in urban communities and turning them into public kindergartens is the key to ensuring the supply of preschool education resources. For urban residents, whether the supporting kindergartens in the community can be inclusive directly determines whether they can enjoy inclusive preschool education nearby. From the practice in recent years, the most critical part of the smooth transfer of community supporting kindergartens to achieve universal benefits is that the property rights are owned by the government. In fact, clarifying the property rights of supporting kindergartens in the community does not have the so-called conflict of legal provisions. In 2021, the Ministry of Education and other nine departments issued the "14th Five-Year Plan for the Development and Improvement of Preschool Education", which has clearly required "promoting the construction of kindergartens in urban residential communities and relocation areas that are compatible with the size of the population, and transferring property rights to the local government in a timely manner".

Second, it is necessary to establish a funding guarantee mechanism for preschool education based on financial input and cost sharing. The development of inclusive preschool education should provide quality preschool education through reasonable cost sharing on the premise of aiming at safety and quality. At present, some kindergartens blindly pursue low investment and low cost, because they are simple, while some blindly pursue high investment, high cost, and "greed for the ocean", which leads to low quality of inclusiveness. In the author's view, the fundamental reason is that there is no scientific verification of the actual cost of preschool education. It is recommended that the scientific approval of inclusive kindergarten operating costs be implemented to local governments as a statutory responsibility, and as the basic basis for formulating preschool education financial and fee policies. At the same time, the proportion of cost sharing should be determined in accordance with the principle of focusing on public financial input. As non-compulsory education, preschool education is not a full guarantee of public finance, but a joint guarantee of financial input and fees. However, the preschool education investment guarantee mechanism, which is mainly based on public financial input, has become the basic policy orientation of major developed countries in the world, and many countries also include preschool education for a certain number of years into compulsory education. Therefore, it should become a statutory responsibility for public finance to "take the lion's share" after the cost is approved. In addition, it is necessary to strengthen the implementation of the government's investment responsibility. Preschool education is currently the weakest and least sound education stage in all levels and types of education systems, to promote the universal, inclusive, safe and high-quality development of preschool education, to meet the society's ardent expectations for high-quality preschool education, it is necessary to implement the government's investment responsibility from the legislative level, especially to strengthen the overall responsibility of the provincial level to support the solution of problems such as insufficient financial resources at the county level.

Third, it is necessary to establish a mechanism for the development of preschool education teachers. The key to running preschool education well lies in improving the system of supplementing kindergarten teachers, guaranteeing salaries and benefits, and strengthening the team of preschool education teachers. It is suggested that preschool education legislation focus on solving two problems: First, build a mechanism for training and professional growth of kindergarten teachers. The second is to solve the problem of the establishment of teachers in public kindergartens. The survey found that preparation is the "most prominent problem that front-line teachers hope to solve in preschool education legislation". One kindergarten, two systems, and unequal pay for equal work have become a pain in the hearts of a considerable number of kindergarten teachers.

The establishment is related to the status and treatment of kindergarten teachers, and then related to their career attractiveness and team stability. It is suggested that preschool education legislation fundamentally solve this problem, implement the establishment of teachers in public kindergartens, and require private kindergartens to implement teachers' salaries and benefits on a par with public kindergartens.

Fourth, it is necessary to establish a management and supervision mechanism for preschool education. To run preschool education well, strong and efficient management and supervision are indispensable. Preschool education is large, the scale of kindergartens is small, the distribution is wide, and the management is difficult. In particular, the problem of illegal parks, which has been ruled for a long time, requires vigorous efforts in many aspects, such as legal responsibility regulations and strengthening law enforcement forces. At the same time, it is necessary to strictly regulate the training of preschool children. For all kinds of training institutions that set up clever names, grandstanding, and abduction, and institutions that illegally run parks under the banner of off-campus training, it is necessary to regulate professional qualifications, scope of practice, course content, reasonableness of fees, and other aspects. In addition, price supervision should be strengthened. It is necessary not only to strengthen the price supervision of public kindergartens and inclusive private kindergartens, but also to introduce strict legal regulations for the fee supervision of other types of kindergartens, especially for-profit private kindergartens. At present, some for-profit private kindergartens are called "aristocratic kindergartens" or "sky-high kindergartens", which are essentially ultra-high-fee kindergartens, and their problems are not only ultra-high fees and profits, but also further promote wrong educational concepts and harm social atmosphere. The Price Law clearly stipulates: "The government may, when necessary, implement government guidance prices or government pricing for very small commodity prices that have a major bearing on the development of the national economy and people's livelihood, the prices of a small number of commodities with scarce resources, the prices of important public utilities, and the prices of important public welfare services." "This provision clearly applies to pre-school education. Therefore, the legal responsibility for setting the maximum price should be entrusted to the people's governments at or above the county level and relevant departments, and for-profit private kindergartens should be required to charge reasonable fees on the basis of the local maximum price.

(Author: Li Tianshun, Vice President of China Education Society)