Early Childhood Education and Development in China

Abstract

In China, both the survival and development of children and the early childhood education have been improved greatly, but the development is uneven in different regions and groups. And child researches deepened and widened with the usage of new technologies and emergence of new topics and emphasize more and more research with children. The problems in early childhood education partly resulted from policy selection and system design. The policies in the past did not clearly define the role of the government and designated the main body responsible for funding at low level of government without strong capacity of public revenue, and the quality supervisory system did not work well. Since 2010, the government issued series of policies and redesigned the system through reforming public funding, teacher training, kindergarten management, etc. The most important change in policy is the shifts from emphasizing effects and efficiency to equity and equality. But lately, policies still exploit the old structure of funding bodies, and the local government could not keep abreast with the central government, and the implementation of policies was challenged. There had long lack of separate professional title system and rigid and explicit professional qualification management and sufficient staff establishment and valid and pertinent education and training system for kindergarten teachers, and it resulted in insufficient, instable, and low qualified staffing. To change teacher-controlled and subject-centered curriculum, the curriculum reform beginning in 1980s decentralized power of curriculum management and advocated beliefs about respecting children, active learning, play-based curriculum, etc. The physical environment and teachers’ beliefs and behaviors changed a lot, but the changes were not simultaneous and very unbalanced among kindergartens, which led into discussions about the cultural adaptation of the reform.