Hey baby – time for school!

This is the time of year when Shanghai's nurseries and kindergartens send out enrollment forms and young parents begin preparing their children for their first foray into outside education. But this year, for many, things will be different. Chinese media have been reporting that Shanghai is facing a serious shortage of nurseries and kindergartens.

As the number of children eligible for kindergartens increases by 10,000 to 20,000 every year, the city is being pushed to cope with a scarcity of early childhood services. "We do feel the pressure to address the issue," Qu Jiajie, an official from the Preschool Education Office of the Shanghai Education Commission, told the Global Times.

Qu said action had been taken to balance supply and demand and that the problem was under control. "Local authorities have long laid emphasis on high-quality early education and I can proudly say that Shanghai provides excellent preschool education compared with many other cities on the Chinese mainland," he said.

While population growth has contributed to the demand for more toddler care services and preschool facilities, publicity on the issue has been reflected by parents eager to nurture their children in the early years of their life, believing this could be fundamental to the way a child's life is shaped.

"What we see is that more and more Chinese parents are discovering what quality education can offer," said Judy Townsend, the head of the Montessori School of Shanghai. The Montessori education system was founded by the Italian physician and educator Maria Montessori in the early 1900s. The system emphasizes individuality and free thinking and is used in more than 20,000 schools around the world. Townsend said that many parents send children to her kindergarten because of its strong academic and bilingual curriculum.

Three-year plans

In 2011 there were 440,000 children in Shanghai's kindergartens, 40,000 more than the previous year. According to Qu, local authorities identified the possibility of a kindergarten shortage as early as 2006, and have since then initiated two "Three-year Plans" to tackle the issue.

"Since 2006, an additional 400 kindergartens have been built every year in Shanghai and this has, to a large extent, helped relieve the enrollment pressure on schools," Qu said.

Currently there are 1,337 kindergartens in Shanghai, some with more than one campus. However the rapid increase in the number of kindergartens is not keeping up with the rate of newborns in the city.

"The Family Planning Commission said more than 180,000 babies are being born in Shanghai every year in recent years. This dramatic increase in population is the key factor contributing to the problem," Qu said.

He added that the fact that working dads and moms needed help with babies and that young parents were seeking better and earlier child education have also resulted in the growing demand for quality kindergartens.

Although there are only 56 nurseries in the city catering for the very young, kindergartens often have classes for children aged from 2.5 to 3. Qu explained that in the past, the government allocated extra teaching resources to nurseries and encouraged kindergartens to set up classes for toddlers.

But when the number of children aged 3 - those old enough for kindergartens - hit new highs, the number of nurseries and classes for toddlers shrank to meet the demands of the older children.

"Admittedly the number of nurseries in the city is small, but we have to balance our teaching resources. Given the status quo, we have to give priority to the enrollments for kindergartens," Qu said.

Zhu Qiong, a teacher from a public kindergarten in Pudong New Area, said that in 2009 her school had a class for 2- and 3-year-olds, but canceled this the following year to cater to the needs of older children.

Because most Chinese parents get a helping hand from their parents with newborn babies and most new mothers stay at home to care for the children, the demand for nurseries is much lower than that for kindergartens.

Li Shanyan, a mother of a 3-and-a-half-year-old, left her job when her son was born. "I don't think it's good to send your child to a nursery too early. I want to spend some quality time with my son when he's little," Li said. Now that she's got her son enrolled in a kindergarten in her neighborhood in Pudong New Area, the 29-year-old is thinking of rejoining the workforce.

A private boom

The growing demand for early childhood education facilities has also prompted a boom in the private sector. There are 459 private kindergartens in Shanghai, accounting for about 34 percent of the total number, and, Qu said, the past few years have seen a steady growth in the number of private kindergartens.

"We have over 100 children on our waiting lists for each of our campuses in Shanghai," said Zhang Ying, an admissions officer for the Montessori School of Shanghai. The school, which can accommodate 260 children in its Xuhui and Qingpu campuses, charges around 10,000 yuan ($1,585) a month per student.

"Parents here place more emphasis on early childhood education," Zhang said, adding that many parents were looking for schools that provided a bilingual environment and taught children how to be independent and how to develop good learning habits and communication skills.

"There is a hunger for education, not just for the children but also from the parents," said the head of the school Judy Townsend. She said that they have seen a lot of parents coming to the school for workshops, even on weekday mornings. The workshops are designed to teach parents about healthy lifestyles, self-belief and how to cultivate the right attitudes in their children.

"Parents get to let their guard down, relate to each other and share their struggles and joys," said Townsend. She came to China four years ago believing there was a big future for educating younger children here.

Many parents have also ventured into the classrooms to learn how to teach younger children. Young mother Li Shanyan said that going to workshops with her son has also changed her approach to education.

Li spoke of one workshop she attended where teachers asked young children to thread as many beads as possible on a string in a given time. "Some of the children who couldn't keep up with the others started to cry. I didn't think it was a big deal at first. But the teachers told us that this was probably because there was too much emphasis on winning in our society, and that as parents we should let go of this desire to turn children into winners in everything, as well as developing their ability to handle setbacks," she said.

Not just teachers

Better education depends on higher qualified teaching staff. Apart from basic teacher qualifications, kindergarten teachers have to meet a number of other requirements. "Unlike other teachers who are strong in a particular subject, kindergarten teachers have to have good comprehensive skills and manage a child's entire day," Qu said.

"Perhaps one of the best characteristics of good teachers is that they approach children with a great deal of respect and love. Teachers don't talk down to children. They talk lovingly and warmly to them," said Townsend, a teacher for more than 25 years. She said that her school advocates the importance for children to love and enjoy every moment of childhood, and seeks to guide them to find peaceful solutions to problems at a very young age.

Kindergarten teacher Zhu Qiong said that teachers regularly get advanced training courses.

Zhu, who teaches a class of 4- and 5-year-olds, said that while teaching resources are adequate in most public kindergartens, not all children can be enrolled in schools easily. "The government has preferential policies for children from families with Shanghai hukou (household registration) but children from non-local families and migrant worker families could be having problems getting enrolled."

Qu confirmed there were preferential policies for Shanghai children. If they cannot be enrolled in neighborhood schools, the government will help them enroll in nearby private schools and subsidize their tuition fees. Every parent with a Shanghai hukou is also entitled to free lectures and workshops on early childhoods.

He said that the government has taken measures to improve the conditions in private day care centers and kindergartens for migrant worker children as well. "We have been overseeing those centers and kindergartens and reviewing the standards," he said.

Local authorities have also launched teacher exchange programs to balance teaching resources in downtown and suburban areas.

All's well that begins well

The debate between nature and nurture has been going on for decades and there have been innumerable studies conducted to explore the impact of early childhood environments and experiences on a person's future life. Many studies suggest that what we eat, see and do in the first few years after we are born not only affects our physical development but also shapes our characters.

What we eat in infancy may have a direct impact on how we gain weight or control blood sugar as adults, according to Raylene Reimer from the University of Calgary in Canada. Reimer is an expert in the developmental origins of health and disease. His research showed that there is a direct connection between an adult's propensity to put on weight and the composition of his early childhood diet.

Reimer is one of a group of researchers who believe that the pre-natal and early childhood environments influence the future risk of developing conditions like cardio vascular disease, obesity and diabetes.

As well as biological influences, research has also shown that the early years of a child's life play a fundamental role in shaping values, attitudes and dispositions. Researchers from the University of Birmingham and Canterbury Christ Church University in the UK tracked a group of children aged between 3 and 4 years in 2008 and 2009. They concluded that children themselves take initiatives and explore their own experiences through story and play. They also found that self-awareness, knowledge of other people and a sense of responsibility begin early in life.

Helping to build character

Not only are scientists intrigued about the effects of early childhood, more young parents are showing interest in investing, not just financially, in the foundation years of their children's lives. Here are a few suggestions for parents.

Show empathy. Children will be more motivated to learn to love and develop positive qualities if they feel that parents understand and care about them deeply.

Make a habit of explaining why something is wrong when correcting children. Wise discipline strategies help build character.

Be a good example to your children. Children learn a lot through imitation.

Encourage your children to speak their minds and establish open lines of communication.

Spend some time each day exclusively with your children and involve them in your social life.