Parents put kindergartens to the test(2)

Children from Litian Kindergarten in Lanzhou, Gansu province, undergo medical checks after allegations that members of staff gave students prescription drugs without parental permission or medical authorization. DING KAI / FOR CHINA DAILY

Lack of choice

Unlike in many Western countries, preschool education in China is not covered by the country's compulsory education system, which means a lack of choice for parents.

The dearth of kindergartens and qualified teachers has become a common problem in nearly all China's major cities. In Tianjin, only one out of every four applicants gains entry to the public kindergarten of their choice. In the southern boom city of Shenzhen, the 1,000-plus kindergartens can only accommodate 73,000 3-year-olds, although there are at least 135,000 children in that age group in the city, according to reports by Xinhua News Agency.

According to the Education for All Global Monitoring Report released by UNESCO in 2007, the proportion of children attending school in three-quarters of countries was higher than 75 percent. In China, the rate only reached 64.5 percent in 2012.

The shortage of schools and the growing demand for preschool education have contributed to the sharp increase in the number of private kindergartens, which have played an increasingly dominant role in the development of preschool education in China.

In 2012, China had 124,600 private kindergartens, accounting for 68.7 percent of the total, up from 55.3 percent recorded in 2005.

In addition, there are a large number of unlicensed kindergartens, which are not included in the official figures. The majority of illegal kindergartens and nurseries, which usually have poorly infrastructure, unqualified staff members and safety shortcuts, are found in the rural areas, which means they often go unnoticed by the authorities.

But the rising number of private kindergartens is not the solution to the problem and the lack of preschool education resources has forced many parents to lower their expectations. Except for a few wealthy parents such as Xu, who can afford to send their children to expensive establishments, children from low-income and migrant workers' families usually attend substandard, sometimes unlicensed, establishments.

Lack of funding

In many countries, private kindergartens play an important role in preschool education. They have high standards of management and are strictly supervised. "But in China, private kindergartens have unqualified staff members and a lack of supervision, which has led to a series of incidents", said Xiong Bingqi, deputy head of the 21st Century Education Research Institute in Beijing.

Xiong has long called for the government to include preschool education in the country's compulsory education system.

Lacking government funding, private kindergartens are responsible for their own profits and losses, and their revenue is based on attendance.

The kindergartens implicated in the drugs scandals were reportedly paid on the basis of attendance, which provided an incentive to keep the children healthy and in school. Children at the Fengyun Lanwan Kindergarten in Xi'an, Shaanxi province, were found to have been given regular doses of moroxydine ABOB, a prescription antiviral used to treat flu, since 2008. School officials allegedly administered the drugs without parental permission and even asked the children not to tell their parents.

About 2,000 children who attended kindergartens in the provinces of Shaanxi, Jilin and Hubei are now receiving medical treatment for ailments such as dizziness, stomach ache, leg pains and genital swelling.

The drugs allegations constituted another blow to China's preschool education system, and followed a series of scandals concerning food safety and claims of physical abuse during recent years.