Luohu to build more public kindergartens to meet rising demand
To increase the number of affordable and quality kindergartens, Shenzhen has been greatly increasing its investment in kindergartens over the past two years.
This is the focus of a program to ensure government-owned and government-subsidized kindergartens can account for more than 80 percent of the total number of kindergartens.
By the end of 2019, there were 1,836 kindergartens in Shenzhen, and 545,000 children attending them, among whom 55.45% had no local household registration; the proportion of government-owned kindergartens in Shenzhen is the lowest among all cities in Guangdong province.
Thanks to the efforts of the city, the number of government-owned and government subsidized kindergartens accounted for 82.35% of the total by the end of June 2020, and the number of children was 37.9% of the total number of children attending kindergartens, compared with four percent last year.
It is estimated that about 240,000 children will enter kindergarten in the city this fall, up 12.9% from that of last year, while the city’s current capacity is 243,000 seats.
According to the Luohu Education Bureau, the district will build another 25 government-owned kindergartens this year. As of March, there were 139 kindergartens in Luohu, among which 16 were recognized as provincial first-class ones. There were 36,706 children attending the kindergarten.
Luohu vowed to build more government-owned kindergartens as early as 2013. Three children education groups were founded on the basis of three existing government-owned facilities, and encouraged to build new kindergartens.
Shenzhen also pledged to raise the proportion of kindergarten teachers with bachelor degrees to more than 50% in government-owned kindergartens in the near future. Luohu also provide subsidies to kindergarten teachers and baby nurses to increase their income so as to attract more talents to the sector.
To guarantee the education quality of its kindergarten, Luohu has founded an 18-member kindergarten education supervisors group drawn from among experienced kindergarten teachers to overlook and evaluate the performances of individual facilities.