Ministry: Almost 98% of Chinese schools assigned supervisors

China has more than 120,000 supervisors monitoring every aspect of the country's 260,000 primary and middle schools, the Ministry of Education said on Tuesday.

"Through continuous efforts over the past five years, almost 98 percent of primary and middle schools are equipped with supervisors," said He Xiuchao, director of the ministry’s Education Supervision Bureau.

There are 19,500 full-time and 103,800 part-time supervisors, who are mainly principals, exemplary or retired teachers, and parents, He said.

"In some areas, the supervising system has been extended to cover kindergartens, vocational schools and special schools," he said.

The ministry will strengthen its supervision of kindergartens to deal with high tuitions fees, insufficient access to good public kindergartens, and safety issues, he added.

Tang Lijun, director of Beijing's education supervision office, said the capital will intensify training of kindergarten supervisors, who were sent to every kindergarten to monitor and ensure education quality and child safety last year.

Beijing is working on an evaluation system of the city's kindergartens, which is expected to be released and implemented in the first half of this year, Tang said, adding that the system will take charge of student admissions as well as kindergartens' grading and overall quality improvement.

On Nov 25, a 22-year-old female teacher from a RYB kindergarten in Beijing’s Chaoyang district was detained for alleged child abuse, causing public uproar.

The Beijing Education Commission later sent hundreds of permanent supervisors to the city's kindergartens.