Beijing News (Reporter Feng Qi) On May 16, Zhou Jin, Deputy Director General of the Education Department of Guizhou Province, introduced the development of promoting universal preschool education in Guizhou Province at the news conference of the Ministry of Education. By the end of 2023, the number of kindergartens in Guizhou Province has increased from 3159 in 2012 to 10871, an increase of 2.4 times; The number of children in kindergarten increased from 983000 to 1.53 million, an increase of 56%. The gross enrollment rate in preschool three years, the coverage rate of inclusive kindergartens and the proportion of children in public kindergartens reached 93.5%, 95.11% and 59.13% respectively.
Zhou Jin introduced that since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, 14.81 billion yuan has been invested in preschool education development, including 10.27 billion yuan from the central government and 4.54 billion yuan from the provincial level. Provincial pre-school education connotation development funds increased to 50 million yuan/year. The county has established a public fund allocation system of no less than 600 yuan per student per year for public kindergartens. In addition, 40 million yuan of provincial-level financial support has been given to the establishment of the pre-school education universal and inclusive supervision and evaluation planning counties, and 50 million yuan of financial support has been given to the counties that declare in advance. At present, 14 counties in Guizhou have been identified as pre-school education universal and inclusive counties.
At the same time, Guizhou Province has continuously implemented the preschool education breakthrough project. Over the past decade, more than 9000 inclusive kindergartens have been newly built, reconstructed and expanded, and the average building area of kindergartens across the province has increased from 2.6 square meters to 12.06 square meters, an increase of 364%; Since the "13th Five Year Plan", 300 kindergartens have been built, renovated and expanded in relocation and resettlement sites for ex situ poverty alleviation, which has met the needs of nearly 45000 school-age children in relocation and resettlement sites for ex situ poverty alleviation; A total of 180000 inclusive pre-school education degrees were added to the community, effectively alleviating the "difficulty" of school-age children in urban areas.
In 2016, Guizhou Province took the lead in launching the nutrition improvement plan for rural pre-school children nationwide. The provincial, municipal (prefecture) and county governments invested a total of 3.634 billion yuan in subsidies, benefiting 6.0957 million rural pre-school children in the province, and realizing the full coverage of rural pre-school education in the province. Fully implement the preschool education subsidy policy. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, a special fund of 980 million yuan has been allocated, benefiting 1.7506 million children from preschool education families with financial difficulties.
In terms of teaching staff, Guizhou Province, in combination with the central "special post plan", has implemented the local "special post plan" to supplement rural kindergarten teachers. Since 2018, the local "special post plan" has been used for kindergarten teacher recruitment, with a total of 8365 people. Based on the principle of "equal pay for equal work", all localities have innovatively implemented policies such as "post system", "dual track system" and "four sameness" to supplement and stabilize the kindergarten teacher team. More than 50000 public kindergarten teachers were added through multiple channels, and the ratio of kindergarten staff to children in the province rose from 1:23.95 in 2012 to 1:7.33 in 2023, laying a solid foundation for scientific education. 14 ordinary undergraduate colleges and universities have been guided to set up preschool education majors, and 5 infant normal colleges have been built, which has improved the level and scale of talent training.
Zhou Jin said that the next step would be to improve the mechanism, complement the weak points, improve the quality, better meet the people's long cherished wish of "good education for children", and make every effort to promote the safe and high-quality development of universal preschool education in Guizhou.
