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Class warfare for kindergarteners parents

By Li Xiang (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-08-18 11:37

Finding a good kindergarten is a testing time for any Chinese parent, but there will be few who go to the lengths Zhang Jiang has to guarantee his child a good preschool education.

"It has been so frustrating that I decided if I can't find one, I'll found one," said the dedicated dad, 35, who has endured months of struggle in his search for a place for his three-year-old son in Beijing.

A mother walks her daughter to preschool, which experts say is one of the most vital stages of education for a child. Competition for places at quality kindergartens has become fierce in recent years. [China Daily/Zhang Xiangyang]

"I came up with the idea of starting my own school after every kindergarten in our neighborhood told me they were already full for the new semester, which begins in September - and had been since May!

"The only options my wife and I had were the luxury, privately-owned kindergartens that charged 5,000-20,000 yuan a month, but that is way out of our price range. We only make 6,000 yuan a month between us."

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Zhang, who works at a Beijing printing company, moved his family from Shaanxi province to the capital eight years ago and is unable to send his son Zhang Liangliang to a cheaper, government-run preschool because he and his wife still do not have hukou, or permanent residency permits.

The couple also does not have guanxi, or connections, to help them find a "back door" in securing a place at a good kindergarten, he explained, adding: "I was told my son must wait until next March, when the spring semester starts, to see if he is lucky enough to be enrolled."

Waiting, though, is something Zhang is not prepared to do and, with the help of two friends, he is now raising 3 million yuan ($440,000) to make his plans to set up a new, "affordable" preschool a reality.

Besides putting up their life savings and applying for a bank loan, they have also been asking family and friends to help out. They are still awaiting a response from the local education commission about a license.

"The bulk of the money will pay to rent a three-story building to house the school and the construction of a playground, while the rest will go towards hiring qualified teachers," he said. "We want to open a kindergarten that is at least affordable to people like us.

"The kindergarten would not be large but it will be in our neighborhood so parents can send their kids here without having to commute long distances."

Zhang and his family live in the Tiantongyuan residential community, part of the capital's Changping district north of the Fifth Ring Road, where he said most kindergartens were privately-run and not registered with the local authorities.

"Parents are aware of the potential safety and hygiene risks but these are the only places they can afford to send their children to. Even the good unregistered ones are hard to get into," he added.

There are 1,266 preschools in Beijing licensed by the Beijing Municipal Education Commission, according to a report by the Beijing Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) in June this year.

It stated there are 1,298 not registered but experts believe the number could be much larger as these kindergartens vary in size and are widely scattered throughout the city. The government has the power to close unregistered schools down but they rarely do as it would likely only compound the problem.

"The emergence of large numbers of non-registered kindergartens obviously shows that the existing registered kindergartens cannot meet the growing demand for preschool education," said Niu Jisheng, director of the committee for education, health, culture and sport for the Beijing Committee of the CPPCC.

The report showed that, of the 1,266 registered kindergartens in Beijing, only 145 were funded solely by the government.

Since 1996, the municipal commission of education has allowed public preschools to ease their financial problems by charging parents sponsorship fees of up to 10,000 yuan on top of their monthly tuition rates, which range on average between 300 to 1,000 yuan.

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