In recent years, some populous provinces such as Anhui, Fujian, Hunan and other places have reported the news of large-scale closure of kindergartens, which makes people wonder what this portends? Is the education sector about to usher in a profound change?
As it becomes less difficult for school-age children to enrol in school, parents seem to be relieved from the intense battle for places. However, with this comes a new problem: there are too many choices, which makes parents feel extremely entangled when choosing a kindergarten for their children.
Against this backdrop, Hunan Province has taken the lead in proposing an important decision: to adjust and optimize the layout of primary and secondary schools and kindergartens in response to changes in the school-age population. This decision not only demonstrates the government's forward-looking thinking on education development, but also provides valuable reference for future education policy formulation.
With the implementation of this decision in Hunan Province, other provinces have begun to follow suit. It is expected that more provinces will successively introduce relevant education policies in the future, which marks the arrival of the wave of kindergarten closures.
Although it is inevitable to feel a little sad to see that kindergartens have really stopped running schools, Xiaoshuai's parents said that they have not been affected by the wave of closures. On the contrary, I feel that the closure of some kindergartens has eliminated some of the difficulties in their choices. In the past, there were many kindergartens near my home, both public and private.
Parents need to go door-to-door for consultation, and they often find it difficult to make a decision. Public kindergartens and private kindergartens have their own advantages, each kindergarten has its own characteristics, some are close to home, some are low-priced, some have strong teachers, some have excellent environmental facilities, some have delicious meals and so on.
Now, with the closure of a large number of private kindergartens, parents only need to choose kindergartens close to home according to their own economic strength and educational philosophy, and do not need to worry about stepping on the minefield. After this round of reshuffle, those kindergartens that have problems in running schools have been closed because there is no source of students, and the rest are high-quality kindergartens that have been tested. From this point of view, the reduction in the number of kindergartens has helped to improve the overall quality of preschool education.
According to official statistics, as of the end of last year, the number of kindergartens in the country was 28.92, a decrease of 5,610 from the previous year, which was the first negative growth in nearly 14 years.
Since September this year, there has been news of a large number of kindergartens being closed in various places, and without exception they are small and medium-sized private kindergartens. The wave of closures is not only in remote areas, but also in the number of kindergartens in Zhejiang, a major education province, has continued to decrease at an average rate of 100 per year in the past three years, and a large number of preschool education graduates and kindergarten teachers can only be employed across industries.
However, many netizens believe that as long as the fertility rate is increased, jobs can be increased, and various social development problems can also be alleviated. Experts point out that in addition to the factors of population decline, there are other reasons for the closure of kindergartens that cannot be ignored. After the two-child policy has just been liberalized, a number of private kindergartens have sprung up.
While these kindergartens solve the problem of difficulty in entering kindergartens, they also make the teaching quality of preschool institutions uneven. With the passage of time, the reputation of the kindergarten will naturally be affected, and the phenomenon of survival of the fittest will appear. Those kindergartens that are smaller, have no qualifications to run schools, and unqualified hardware facilities are bound to face the fate of closure.
The decline in births and population mobility has had a significant impact on the supply and demand for education. Xiong Bingqi, president of the 21st Century Education Research Institute, once wrote an analysis that relevant departments should carry out forward-looking top-level design and scientifically lay out the development of schools to cope with changes in the birth population. He believes that the construction standards of schools and the teacher-student ratio should be greatly improved from pre-school to high school education, so as to avoid the closure of schools (kindergartens) due to the decline in the number of births.