Kindergartens get own dept

China's education authority has established preschool education as being important as other education fields by setting up a new office in charge of preschool reform, according to a Ministry of Education circular.

It clarifies lists institutional changes with offices being respectively set up for preschool education, special education for handicapped children and further education.

The preschool education office will work on policies and development plans, including designing quality standards and basic requirements for education at kindergarten level.　

Preschool education was noted in the education section of a speech delivered by President Hu Jintao at the opening of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China on November 8.

"It shows the country's resolution to fulfilling the equal right to education. Preschool education is crucial to helping children develop," Wang Hongcai, an education professor from Xiamen University, told the Global Times.

With the benefits of economic development, more people have been paying attention to preschool education, stating that there are not enough kindergartens.

The situation improved after the country rolled out a new national education plan (2010-20) in 2010, raising the importance of preschool education. According to government statistics, 62.3 percent of preschoolers attended kindergartens in 2011, up from 50.9 percent in 2009.

Apart from the new offices, a special bureau responsible for major education reform measures was also set up. The ministry said this change was made to deepen reform in the education administrative system and fully implement the national education plan (2010-20).

The establishment of the new bureau has been appraised by experts as an important step forward for the country's education reform, since the government was seen as being too involved in the affairs of universities in the past.

"The reform of the education sector must also include the government loosening its controls on schools and universities," Chu Chaohui, a researcher with China National Institute for Educational Research, told the Global Times.

These institutional changes have also seen portfolios change hands, with the oversight of higher professional education being transferred from the higher education department to the professional and continuing education department.

The transfer would help the development of professional education, and policies could be made more suitable for the particularities of the field, Wang said. However, he cautioned that the investment and education quality in higher professional education might decline in the transfer.