According to the annual statistical bulletin released by the Ministry of Education, from 2020 to 2023, the number of kindergartens in mainland China decreased from 291,700 to 274,400, and the number of children in kindergartens decreased from 48 million to about 40 million during the same period.
(Source: Ministry of Education)
In three years, the number of children in kindergartens has decreased by nearly 8 million, and the situation is not undire. What's more serious is that as the post-80s and 90s generations pass the optimal reproductive period, the number of young children will further decline.
A closer look at the data released by the Ministry of Education shows that the decline in the number of children in kindergartens is much greater than the decline in the number of kindergartens. Based on this, it is not difficult to speculate that many kindergartens are now "hard to carry", and the "closure tide" of kindergartens in the future is inevitable.
In fact, the "wave of closures" of kindergartens has been staged in many places.
At present, kindergartens in rural areas and townships are basically wiped out; Third, fourth, and fifth-tier cities are already unsustainable; First- and second-tier cities are also unable to hide the dilemma of declining livelihoods year by year.
In Shanghai, for example, the number of kindergarten students has plummeted by about 90,000 by 2023 after slowing down from 2018. According to incomplete statistics, more than 30 kindergartens will be closed in Shanghai in 2023 alone.
Not long ago, Jiangxia District of Wuhan City issued an announcement to revoke the license of 36 private kindergartens.
After investigation, 36 private kindergartens in Jiangxia District have no enrollment behavior, no children in the kindergarten, and have not participated in the annual inspection of the school license according to the regulations, and have not applied for cancellation independently. Therefore, the Jiangxia Education Bureau plans to repeal the school license of 36 private kindergartens such as Zhengdian Seedling Kindergarten.
If even kindergartens in first- and second-tier cities such as Shanghai and Wuhan can't bear it, the situation of kindergartens in other cities can be imagined.
With the intensification of the tide of kindergarten closures, the "hard to find a garden" that once plagued parents has become "hard to find a child".
I don't know if you have found it, in the past, it was not too difficult for children to go to a kindergarten nearby, in addition to the high tuition fees, but also half a year or even a year in advance to register, even then it may not be able to enter the kindergarten smoothly.
As a result, driven by short-term interests, almost every new building will be equipped with a kindergarten. In the past decade, such kindergartens have blossomed everywhere in various cities, and there has been a serious surplus.
Nowadays, many parents have found that the kindergarten at the door of their home has changed their previous high profile and has begun to compete for children. In addition to organizing a variety of parent-child activities to attract kindergartens, the neighborhood committee is actually sending kindergarten enrollment advertisements, and the registration brochure that was only issued at the end of June in previous years has been advanced by two months this year.
As the oversupply of kindergartens increases, a series of ripple effects will follow.
First of all, the "closing tide" of kindergartens has been the general trend, and the first to bear the brunt of those expensive private kindergartens; Secondly, the "closing tide" of kindergartens will directly lead to the unemployment tide of kindergarten teachers, and the kindergarten teacher industry will become more and more surplus and more and more involuted.
After kindergarten, there is elementary school, middle school, and university......
At present, primary and secondary schools are still one of the main factors that plague parents. Every school season, when the zoning is announced, there are a few happy and a few sad. In order to let their children go to school nearby, it is even more difficult than climbing to the sky, and they often have to rely on relationships for hundreds of thousands of sponsorship fees.
Suffice it to say that such good days are coming to an end soon.
As the number of births continues to decline, kindergarten today is elementary school tomorrow.