Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283260714
CITATION READS
1 836
1 author:
Xin Zhou
East China Normal University
17 PUBLICATIONS 63 CITATIONS
SEE PROFILE
Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:
Mathematics monitoring indicater system for children aged 5-6 View project
Diagnosis and intervention for math learning difficulty in 5-6 year-olds View project
All content following this page was uploaded by Xin Zhou on 27 October 2015.
Introduction
country in the world, with a population of 1.3 billion. There are 56 ethnic groups in
the nation, with the Han making up about 92% of the population and other ethnic
groups including the Zhuang, Uygur, Hui, Yi, Tibetan, Miao, Manchu, Mongol, Buyi,
and Korean. Both ethnic languages and the official language of mandarin are used
in ethnic areas. In the last few decades, the nation has made great progress in
economic development, especially since 1978 when the country began to adapt an
economic growth, living standards have improved dramatically in the past ten years
for much of the population, However, in 2002, 5% of the population was still
below the national poverty line and the developmental gap between the urban and
rural areas was great. Currently, the number of children aged 0-6 is about 99.3 million,
8.14 % of the total population. Among the child population, more than 50% are less
than three years of age. More than 60% of these children live in rural areas.
After the Communist Party took over mainland China, gender equity was on
join the workforce, leading to the care of the children as a social issue. The Ministry
childhood program is to ensure that children have a healthy physical and mental
relieve the burden of child care from mothers, so mothers are able to have the time to
the early childhood program have not been changed in the past five decades, while the
development and this idea has been well accepted by the policy makers in the
learning and development, important policies have been made and implemented. In
the two versions of the same government document titled Chinese Children
development is related to the nation’s economical and social progress, and is tied to
the improvement of the quality of human resources in the nation. Although many
specific goals have been established for the improvement of children’s survival
conditions in rural areas in this document, the goal for providing equal education and
universal access to all children is not mentioned. In recent years, the idea of equal
education has been discussed primarily in the sector of compulsory education, and not
Xingzhi Dao (1891-1946) established the first early childhood program for
farmers and factory workers in Nanjing and Shanghai in the 1920s. After Dao studied
with Dewey in the United States in 1910s, he returned to China to make great efforts
for poor families and their children. He proposed that children’s education should
start before the age of six and that education should encourage children to employ
both hands and minds; to learn by doing. He was also an advocate for the education of
creativity.
Xuemen Zhang (1891-1973) was a well-known child educator in North China and
Taiwan. He worked with children as an ordinary teacher for many years. In his
for children.
Heqin Chen (1892-1982) was a well-known child psychologist and child educator.
with Kilpatrick early in the 20th Century. After returning to China, he worked in
was the founder of the first experimental child education center Gulou Kindergarten
in Nanjing, and also established the first public early childhood education teacher
training school in the early 1940s in Jiangxi province. He is the first researcher to
conducted in Nanjing provided a solid foundation for the establishment of the first
Chinese citizen; 2) use of the nature and the social life as the resource of the
curriculum; 3) the principle for teaching young children as “to learn by doing, to teach
Chinese children’s position in society has been changing in the last few decades.
Historically, children did not have many rights in a Chinese family. They were treated not as
independent persons, but instead as the personal property of adults. Young children, particularly
girls, could be killed at birth, abandoned, sold, or sent as a gift to relatives. Even as adults they
usually did not have rights equal to the older adults in the family until they had a family of their
own. This situation has been changing since early 1950s, following the Communist Party
take-over of the country. However, in many rural areas today, girls may still not be treated equally
The popular metaphor “children are flowers of the country, the future of the country” has
been used to describe Chinese children. The idea that children should have special protection
and care is not only written into the constitution but broadly accepted in Chinese society. During
the past few decades, the conditions for the survival and development of Chinese children have
been improving steadily. For example, the mortality for children under the age of five has
decreased from 225 per 1,000 births in 1960 to 36 per 1,000 births in 2001; the infant mortality
has decreased to 30 per 1,000 births. In 1991, the People’s Congress passed the Young Citizen
Protection Law, which specifies the purpose, principles and responsibilities for the protection for
children. In the same year, China signed The Convention on the Rights of the Child. In order to
achieve the child protection goals an important government document was issued in 1992, titled
Chinese Children Development Guideline in the 1990s. The document made children a top priority.
Ten specific goals for child survival, protection, development and education were established. In
2001, the State Council Women and Children Commission declared that almost all the goals
proposed in that guideline have been reached. A new Chinese Children Development Guideline for
2001-2010 has just been released, which proposes specific goals and implementation strategies in
been relatively slow, particularly in rural areas. Family planning policy may have
made a positive change for children’s position in the family. Because of the
pressure of population growth on the nation, the government initially encouraged and
then (starting in 1979) enforced the policy of one child per family. As a result, over
90% of families in urban areas today have only one child. Needless to say, the only
child in the family has been able to receive more care and have a better education.
Parents invest more money and time in their only child’s health and education. In
the family, the only child experiences the situation called “4-2-1 Syndrome”, four
grandparents and two parents give their love and attention to the single child. One
result has been over protection and not enough discipline for the child in some
families. It is also possible that the change in children’s position within the family
may be reflected more in the distribution of attention and resources to the child, and
not so much in respect for the child’s rights. For example, parents and grandparents
usually have very high expectations for the child’s academic achievements. Many
children in the urban areas are now expected to take extra curricular classes at an
early age, such as English, computer, music and visual arts, etc. These children and
their parents are often busy during the weekends, running from one training class to
the other. In many cases, children’s own interests and choices are not considered
and respected.
The Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Health and the National Women’s
Federation play important roles in formulating the national policies for the
development and education of young children. The purposes of the policies are to: 1)
protect young children and mothers by improving their living conditions and the
quality of service; 2) set up the national program and curriculum standard and to
improve the quality of early childhood education; 3) coordinate the administration and
management for early childhood education programs between different social sectors
at the national, provincial and local government levels; 4) improve teacher training
and professional development system; 5) provide better support and child care service
to families and parents, and 6) provide support for the development of the early
Extent of Provision
Up to three years of age, the majority of Chinese children are usually cared for at
resources allow, the mother may quit her job for few years to take care of the child.
Before the mid 1990s, many work places provided child care services for their
workers. Many mothers returned to work after 60 days of maternal leave (the current
policy allows for at least 90 days of paid maternal leave) and left their child in the
has been decreasing, because many state owned businesses have been sold to private
individuals, resulting in closure of some of the child care services. In urban areas, at
the age of one year and half, some children go to kindergartens that provide toddler
programs, while others go to private home day care. A high percentage of children
stay home until age three. In some urban areas these children may go to early
The percentage of children who enrolled in regular education programs for children
before three in urban areas is usually less than 20%. The early childhood education
At the age of three, the majority of the children in urban areas attend
kindergartens for three years of early childhood education. Most of these programs
provide full-day services and some also provide a boarding program. In urban areas
the percentage of the children enrolled in early childhood programs is over 90%,
while in rural areas it is only 39%. In 2002 there were 11.2 million kindergartens in
Program Types
The most popular type of kindergarten program is called You Er Yuan. This is
usually a full day program for children aged 3-6, or in some areas age 5 only and age
6 only. The school day lasts from 7:30am to 5:00 pm. Children either have one
meal and two snacks or three meals and two snacks in the center each day. Parents
are responsible for paying the cost of the food. In recent years, the service of
working parents in urban areas. Half-day programs are rare. The children in this
kindergarten program are usually grouped by age, although mixed age grouping does
exist. Teachers who work in kindergartens are required to have at least three years
of professional training.
An independent early childhood education institute for children below the age
of three is another type of program called Tuo Er Suo. This is an infant nursery that
usually provides full-day service. The operation of these nurseries is the same as that
individuals. In recent years, this type of program has been integrated into
A third type of program that has emerged recently is called Zao Jiao Zhong
Xin. This is an early childhood education center. These centers also provide services
for children below the age of three.. Financially supported by local governments or
other resources, these centers usually provide free or hourly rate education programs
such as teacher directed activities for infants and toddlers, or parent-child activities.
Some of these centers are independently built and others are affiliated with regular
role in providing the service. These centers may have some branches called early
childhood education stations, which are located in local communities. An informal
childcare service for children before the age of three is private home care, which is
provided by individual families. This kind of service usually has a flexible schedule
A great gap still exists between urban and rural areas in terms of children’s survival and
development. Millions of young children continue to need help in obtaining nutritional foods and
basic care. Because of the rapid urbanization in the recent years, many farmers have moved into
urban areas to find jobs. Some of these workers bring their children with them, but most leave
their children in the care of their grandparents or other relatives. In either case, the care and the
education for these children have been a great problem. Migrant children may not be able to go to
local child care programs because their parents cannot afford such services. These children may be
brought to their parents’ worksite and often cause a safety problem. Children who are left behind
with relatives may have more emotional and discipline problems in addition to the lack of parental
protection. The number of the children affected by HIV/AIDS has also been increasing in some
areas in the recent years. In some urban areas the government has been adopting special policies to
Financing
programs in China were partially publicly-funded, and some were partially supported
by work places. In either case, parents shared about 40% of the cost. However, in the
last ten years, the number of public or work site funded kindergartens has been
decreasing. In many areas, some of these kindergartens have been sold to private
private kindergartens the cost to parents has increased, while the quality of the
education has not risen. The number of private early childhood education programs
has been increasing steadily in the past 10 years and the monitoring of the quality for
References
In Chinese:
The Preschool Education Research Association (Ed), (2003). The century Chinese preschool
education: 1903-2003. Beijing: Educational Science Press.
In English:
China at a glance http://www.worldbank.org.cn/