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Kindergartens crisis as they call for higher fees
By Deng Ran |
August 5, 2009, Wednesday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
MORE than 60 of about 150 public kindergartens in Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu Province, have jointly petitioned the local government to increase their fees and charge a basic rate of 600 yuan (US$88) per month.
They argue they can't make ends meet by applying the current government-fixed rates, from 160 to 460 yuan a month depending on the quality level of the kindergarten.
The Nanjing appeal to raise fees was made in June, three months before the autumn semester begins. The request is being evaluated by the municipal bureau of price controls. Judging from the balance sheet, public kindergartens in Nanjing seem to have every reason to be concerned.
In Nanjing, one class in an average public kindergarten usually contains 30 children with three teachers. Charging for 10 months in a school year, public kindergartens earn around 150,000 yuan from day-care a year. The annual salaries of three teachers alone, however, add up to 180,000 yuan.
Less than 10 percent of public kindergartens in Nanjing receive state subsidies. That's why they're petitioning for a rise in fees.
While kindergartens complain about shortage of funds, parents say they are paying through the nose.
Nanjing's official figures show that local residents' average monthly income in the first quarter of this year was 2,575 yuan.
Education and nurture in public kindergartens, plus other child care can cost parents more than 1,000 yuan a month. Nearly one-fifth of the total income of a family of two working parents is eaten up this way.
Enrollment in a pubic kindergarten is good fortune, since private ones - representing around 66 percent of all kindergartens in Nanjing - charge even more.
On June 17, the Jinling Evening News based in Nanjing reported that one private kindergarten charged 120,000 yuan a year for bilingual education, creating another round of heated debate.
The problem of high kindergarten fees is not confined to one city. Price control bureaus in cities such as Fuzhou in Fujian Province, Changsha in Hunan Province and Shenzhen in Guangdong Province are also getting complaints from angry parents.
There are just not enough public kindergartens to meet the demand in many cities. According to the bureau of statistics in Hefei, Anhui Province, only 0.1 percent of all pre-schoolers are able to attend public kindergarten.
Nationwide, pre-school education receives only 1.2-1.3 percent of all public funding for education. In Thailand the ratio is 16 percent, in Mexico it's around 9 percent.
A bigger problem is that kindergartens are not part of the nine-year compulsory education system in China.
During last year's National People's Congress, representative Chen Jingyi from Taicang city, Jiangsu Province and a kindergarten principal herself, proposed that compulsory education should include kindergartens.
Indeed, education and character building start with a baby, not after he or she turns six to qualify for compulsory education.
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