Crisis in city’s preschools caused by low salaries

A chronic shortage of preschool places that leaves thousands of children shut out will not be solved until the government guarantees higher wages to teachers, according to a report released by the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences.

The "2011 Development Report on Laws in Beijing," said that parents of around 60,000 children could not find preschool places for their children because of a shortage of teachers, which is estimated to be about 14,600.

"The shortage has lessened since 2010, when we collected those statistics, but there's still great demand for spots that we can't fulfill," said Li Xin, professor at Capital Normal University who conducted the studies into the preschool education situation in the report.

According to an announcement from Beijing Municipal Commission of Education in October, 5 percent of preschool-age children with a Beijing hukou (household registration) will be unable to find a place by the end of next year, plus 10 percent of children without a hukou, despite an increase of 23,000 new places this year by building new schools.

"It takes way more than investment into school buildings, as there's a shortage of qualified teachers," said Li.

Low wages and benefits at public and private kindergartens do not attract qualified teachers, and also force teachers to quit, the report said.　

"There are more private kindergartens, which pay teachers less than the public ones, but actually the tuition fees charged are higher as they don't get government subsidies," said Li.

Chi Chaoming, principal of the First Kindergarten of Dongcheng district health bureau, said the school has been under a lot of pressure to take in all the local preschool children, but a shortage of teachers has never been their problem.

"Too many migrant workers' children coming into the city and low government subsidies might be the biggest concerns," said Li.