How to Advance the Initial Training System for Chinese Kindergarten Teachers in a New Era

Abstract

China was the world’s leading economy from the early 1500s until the early 1800s (Maddison 2001, 2007). Then, although the country experienced catastrophes, it advanced amidst turbulence in the next two centuries. From 1978 to 2010, China’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew from 364.5 billion RMB to 39.7983 trillion RMB, the second largest in the world. Accordingly, the per capita GDP increased every year.

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1 Introduction

China was the world’s leading economy from the early 1500s until the early 1800s (Maddison 2001, 2007). Then, although the country experienced catastrophes, it advanced amidst turbulence in the next two centuries. From 1978 to 2010, China’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew from 364.5 billion RMB to 39.7983 trillion RMB, the second largest in the world. Accordingly, the per capita GDP increased every year. In 2001, China’s per capita GDP was for the first time more than 1,000 dollars, reaching 1,042 dollars. In 2006, it was more than 2,000 dollars, up to 2,069 dollars, and was 3,744 dollars in 2009 (World Bank 2011). China had moved from the category of low-income countries into the ranks of middle-income countries in 2006 (National Bureau of Statistics 2009). According to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the annual growth rate of China’s per capita GDP from 1990 to 2005 was 8.8 %, the highest in the first of the BRIC countries, also much higher than the OECD countries by 1.8 and 1.5 % of the world average (UNDP 2007). Even though China has achieved intensive and extensive growth since 1978, it is still a developing country in terms of GDP per capita. In 2012, China’s GDP per capita of $6,091 ranked 90th in the world. Furthermore, about 128 million people still live below the national poverty line of RMB 2,300 per year (about $1.8 a day) based on the World Bank’s data.

During over the last three decades, education has played an important role in China’s economic prosperity, with unprecedented development in schooling and massive expansion of higher education. However, preprimary education has been long neglected. For example, with regard to budgetary share, preprimary education only received 1.3 % of the budgetary expenditure in 2008, while the enrollment accounted for 9.3 % of the total (World Bank 2011). Things have changed since 2010, and preprimary education has entered a new stage of development as a national priority.

2 Preprimary Education as a National Priority

China has a long history of promoting ideas about how to help children to reach their full potentials, which could be tracked down to one of the oldest of the Chinese classic texts, the I Ching, also known as the Classic of Changes, Book of Changes, Zhouyi and Yijing. However, modern preprimary education became an organic part of public education in the early twentieth century. In 1903, the governor of Hubei Province, Fang Duan, established the first preprimary education institution, Hubei Kindergarten,¹ inside the Yuemachang primary school in Wuhan and hired three Japanese teachers, including Tono Michie, a graduate of Tokyo Women’s Higher Teachers College, which began the history of Chinese public preprimary education and introduced Japanese Froebel kindergarten theory and practice (Jingzheng 2005). In November 1949, after the foundation of the People’s Republic of China, the Ministry of Education (MOE) of the Central People’s Government was established, and the Preprimary Education Office was set in the Department of Basic Education (Tang et al. 2009). Since then, preprimary education has become an important part of public education and a “step on the road” to China’s rise.

Since 1949, education development has strongly supported training talent for the rise of China. In 1949, 80 % of the population was illiterate, and primary and secondary school enrollment rates were only 20 and 6 %, respectively. There were only 11.7 million students in school. In 2008, the national primary school enrollment rate reached 99.5 %, which of junior middle school reached 98.5 % and the higher education gross enrollment rate was 23.3 % (Education Bureau for the Party Group 2009). As the starting point for basic education, the gross enrollment rate of preprimary education was 50.86 % in 2009. In 2009, only half of the children entering first grade had received three years of preprimary education. This figure shows that although an important part of the national education system, preprimary education was a weak component, lacking resources that could benefit more people. In addition, there was inadequate investment in and unbalanced development of kindergartens in urban and rural regions, rendering them unable to meet the society’s growing needs.

Since the second decade of twenty-first century, the Chinese government has made early childhood development a national priority, recognizing the social and economic dividends that quality early learning opportunities reap for its human capital in the long term. As the country with the largest population in the world, 100 million children under the age of six in China stand to benefit from increased access to high-quality preprimary education. More exciting, PISA 2009 results have showed that, on average, Shanghai 15-year-old students (M = 561) with more than one-year preprimary education scored 66 points higher than those (M = 495) without any preprimary education in reading achievement. Even the social economic status was controlled to estimate; the big gap still remained 42 points (OECD 2010). In a word, preprimary education could be an effective tool to enhance education quality and an anti-poverty strategy to build up a better society and long-term prosperity.

2.1 A Road Map of Universal Preprimary Education

That was a landmark year in the history of the development of Chinese preprimary education. On July 29, 2010, the Chinese government issued the “Outline of China’s National Plan for Medium and Long-term Education Reform and Development (2010–2020)” (hereinafter referred to as the “Outline”). It ranked preprimary education as one of the top eight tasks of education reform in the next decade, with an entire chapter dedicated to outlining its planning and deployment. Furthermore, it set out “the basic development goal of popularizing preprimary education.” In 3 years, the gross enrollment of one-year kindergartens should reach 70 % and by 2020 up to 95 % (Xinhua News Agency 2010-7-29). On November 24, the State Council issued the “Commentary on the Current Development of Preprimary education” (Office of the State Council 2010-11-24) and developed preprimary education as important to the protection and improvement of people’s livelihood. The government used a full range of system designs for preprimary education, developed a series of strong policy measures, and implemented its responsibility to expand resources, ensure the investment, and organize teacher groups and regulate management. Meanwhile, regional governments were required to prepare a three-year action plan at the county level to effectively alleviate the problem of inadequate access to kindergartens. On December 1 2010, the State Council held a national preschool television and telephone conference to fully implement the “Commentary on the Current Development of Preprimary education.” The introduction of these policies and measures meant that preprimary education had entered a new stage of development.

There would be 40 million children in kindergartens by 2020, and the gross enrollment rates of one-year and three-year kindergartens would reach 95 and 70 %, respectively (Xinhua News Agency 2010-7-29). According to the reform blueprint, the development of preprimary education in China has stepped into a golden decade (Table 9.1).

Table 9.1 Goals of the development of ECE according to the “Outline”

2.2 Tremendous Gaps Between Urban and Rural Areas Need to Be Addressed

In 2008, one-third of the 3-year-old children were left behind by their migrant parents, and most of them were cared by their grandparents who have lower educational attainment and have less knowledge and information about nutrition, health, and education than the parents. Thirty-Four percentage 6-month babies had anemia in rural China. Roughly, 61 % of China’s populations aged 0–6 years live in rural areas, but only 43 % of the total can enroll in rural kindergartens (World Bank 2011).

China’s dual economic structure and the Hukou resident registration system make the difference between urban and rural areas a more serious problem. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, China’s rural population was 82.08 % of the total population in 1978 but fell to 54.32 % in 2008 (National Bureau of Statistics 2009). Despite more than 30 years of rapid development, China is still an agricultural country with more than half of its population in rural areas. Taking the mortality rate of children under age 5 as an example, in 1991, it was 20.9 % in the city and 71.1 % in the country. In 2008, the rate in cities declined to 7.9 %, while in rural areas it was as high as 22.7 % (National Bureau of Statistics 2009). Although health care for children in rural areas has improved in terms of quantity, the average quality of health services received by these children today has not even reached the average quality provided in cities in 1991.

A consideration of the urban and rural distribution of full-time kindergarten teachers reveals an even greater difference between the two areas, take Fig. 9.3 for example. In 2000, the number of full-time kindergarten teachers in cities and towns accounted for 59.66 % of the total, with only 40.34 % in rural areas. In 2001, the number of full-time kindergarten teachers in rural areas decreased significantly to 546,203, accounting for only 22.97 % of the total. Although the number of full-time kindergarten teachers has been growing slowly, those in rural areas still accounted for only 24.1 % of the total by 2010. Considering that China had a rural population of 54.32 % in 2008 (National Bureau of Statistics 2009), rural preprimary education undoubtedly is the weakest part of the Chinese education system (Fig. 9.1).

Fig. 9.1

Urban and rural distribution of full-time kindergarten teachers. (Source Ministry of Education, Education Statistics from 2000 to 2010)

How to target the most disadvantaged children is one of the most challenging problems for Chinese government, in terms of universal preprimary education with enough qualified kindergarten teachers.

2.3 Poor Teacher Quality

Data on educators’ academic background and titles in 2010 (Figs. 9.2 and 9.3) show that 38.53 % of principals and full-time kindergarten teachers graduated from senior high school or had less education, and less than 13 % were college undergraduates. In addition, 64.25 % of educators were principals, full-time kindergarten teachers had no titles, and less than 15 % had senior titles. Such a group of educators cannot provide high-quality preprimary education. Moreover, the status of kindergarten teachers is vague, and the salary system has long needed attention. In China, high fees for students and low wages for teachers coexist in preprimary education, especially in the private sectors.

Fig. 9.2

Education level of principals and full-time kindergarten teachers in 2010. (Source Ministry of Education, Education Statistics in 2010)

Fig. 9.3

Titles of principals and full-time kindergarten teachers in 2010. (Source Ministry of Education, Education Statistics in 2010)

3 Initial Training System of Kindergarten Teachers in Fragment

Traditionally, as a well-respected profession in China, teaching has attracted quality talents, especially in eastern China and developed regions. Teaching is a moderate paid, but stable job with good welfare benefit payments. Particularly in big cities, teachers in primary and secondary schools have opportunities to supplement income through tutoring, which makes the profession attractive to many top candidates. Furthermore, top normal universities allow priority admissions to teacher candidates in undergraduate programs, meaning that teacher programs often have the first choice of many top students. That is why we could find China had the highest Teacher Status Index ranking out of 21 surveyed countries, with an index of 100. China also had the most respondents stated they would encourage their child to become a teacher.

Teachers in China are educated in one of three types of schools. Special upper secondary schools can qualify teachers for preprimary and primary positions with the equivalent of a high school diploma. Normal colleges, equivalent to a junior college, typically train junior secondary teachers for two years following upper secondary school. Finally, normal universities train upper secondary teachers in a four-year bachelor’s degree program (Zhu and Han 2006).

Following the receipt of the required diploma, teachers must be certified, which requires two additional steps. First, they must pass the National Mandarin Language Test; afterward, they must take four examinations in the areas of pedagogy, psychology, teaching methods, and teaching ability. Candidates must demonstrate teaching abilities such as classroom management as part of this examination. Teachers who attend a university for teacher education are exempt from the four examinations because it is assumed that they will have this knowledge as a result of their program of study.

3.1 Unequal Developments in Training Institutions

Firstly, the number of schools training kindergarten teachers drops gradually from east to west. On the contrary, the number of schools training primary school teachers and the number of professions training secondary school teachers increase gradually from east to west. Similarly, the number of schools training teachers in special education grows incrementally from east to west, while that of vocational teachers show an opposite trend (Fig. 9.4).

Fig. 9.4

Distribution of colleges and professions for kindergarten teachers training (2009). (Source Teacher Education Office, the Ministry of Education 2012)

Secondly, teachers in China are educated in one of three types of schools, which are special upper secondary schools, normal colleges, and normal universities. In terms of kindergarten teachers, most of them are educated in special upper secondary schools, which account for 81.76 % of the total number of schools training kindergarten teachers (Fig. 9.5).

Fig. 9.5

Types of schools training kindergarten schools (2009). (Source Teacher Education Office, the Ministry of Education 2012)

3.2 Low-Level Initial Training with Unqualified Student Teachers

Currently, there are a large variety of training institutions involving kindergarten teacher training, arranging from normal universities, normal colleges, and comprehensive universities to vocational schools and special upper secondary schools. Training levels cover undergraduate, college, and secondary school levels, but show a trend of de-professionalism and poor education as a whole. Firstly, in terms of the quantity of different training institutions, the number of normal schools is far less than that of other kinds of schools. And the trend is more obvious in the secondary school level, where there are 2,182 non-normal upper secondary schools, accounting for 94.9 %. Moreover, in terms of the number of students, there were 128,800 students graduated from non-normal upper secondary schools, constituting 65 % of the total graduates in preschool education in 2010, with 542,100 students on campus, accounting for 66.1 %. What is more, in respect of training levels, there are 169 schools offering undergraduate-level training, while there are 283 and 2,299 schools, respectively, in college-level training and secondary-school-level training. And the graduation rates for each training level in 2010 were 2.53, 13.04, and 84.43 %, respectively, for undergraduate level, college level, and secondary school level. Thus, large numbers of non-normal upper secondary schools participate in kindergarten teacher training at secondary school level, which do not enhance the whole level of kindergarten teacher training, but lower the professional levels of training institutions, leading to oversupply of unqualified teachers. A survey shows that the supply of students majoring in preprimary education at secondary school level in some provinces, such as Zhejiang and Hunan, is far more than the actual demand (Pang 2008).

With large number of non-normal secondary and upper secondary schools participate in kindergarten teacher training, the student quality shows an obvious declining trend. A survey shows that under the influence of unification in tuition fees and self-selected career system, student quality from some schools with low educational capability and low professionalism drops significantly (Zhao and Zhu 2010). Among the five-year students recruited in 2004 by a normal college in preprimary school in Guangdong Province, the number of students under 300 points accounted for 17.37 %, with 300–400 points constituting 47.01 %, and the proportion of 400–500 points and more than 500 points was 34.49 and 1.13 %, respectively. On the contrary, the number of students with more than 550 points accounted for 95 % in 1999 (Peng and Pi 2006). Heads from some training institutions even said that “In the past, our enrollment score line was as high as that of first-class senior high school, but now only girls who cannot enter university come here. This year, the score line of the first-class senior high of our city is more than 610 points, while ours is only 400 points. Students’ learning ability is quite poor” (Pang 2008). In the meantime, with serious loss of students and more choices for students, some training institutions intently lower the enrollment standards for survival. And in order to meet the enrollment plan, many schools without the ability to offer training courses recruit large numbers of preprimary education students irresponsibly through joint recruitment, afflicted enrollment, changing name to recruit, etc., which further exacerbate the poor quality of students (Pang 2008).

3.3 Theory-Oriented Versus Practice-Oriented in Training Curriculum

Currently, the training for kindergarten teachers becomes polarized. The training mode represented by normal universities is characterized with strong “academism,” focusing on basic theories and academic research, but neglecting skills and practice. By contrast, the training mode represented by special upper secondary schools is characterized with strong “de-professionalism,” emphasizing on skills training without consideration of teachers’ own “professionalism.” Such upper secondary school is lack of related training experiences and infrastructure, teacher training faulty, practice base, etc. Therefore, their course arrangement and teaching practice are relatively arbitrary, especially the mixed usage of teaching materials. Usually, some comprehensive schools participating in kindergarten teachers training would face both of these two problems. A survey shows that this kind of school on the one hand emphasizes on basic theory course and neglects practice; on the other hand, they are lack of training experience and weak in training faulty, which are mainly qualified with low academic diploma (Zhang et al. 2011).

4 Ways Forward

4.1 More Qualified Kindergarten Teachers in Need

At the same time, China’s population has had new trends and challenges. The birth peak of the last century was in 1990 when the population reached 26.21 million. Then, the birth rate dropped, but since 2006 has increased steadily. This new fertility peak could be seen coming (Fig. 9.6). The children of a 1980s baby boom have come of age and now make up most of the married couples. Many of the young couples were raised as single children, which entitles them to a second child. Therefore, the contradiction between demand and supply has become exceptional. Questions regarding how to expand the scale of preprimary education and increase the penetration rate have been voiced by the majority of parents, forcing all levels of government to respond.

Fig. 9.6

Number of births from 2006–2011 in China. (Source National Population and Family Planning Commission of China (2011). Development Report of National Population and Family Planning Programs in 2011. http://www.chinapop.gov.cn/xxgk/tjgb/201207/t20120702_390723.html)

From 2010 to 2020, the need for kindergarten teachers increases largely, which is a big challenge for teacher supply. Table 9.2 shows the kindergarten teacher training in different academic levels.

Table 9.2 Kindergarten teachers training in different academic levels

According to the data in Table 9.2, though more than 200,000 students graduated from preprimary education in 2010, which was much higher than what kindergartens needed (118,800), graduates with bachelor’s degree and college diplomas were only 31,282. In secondary school level of kindergarten teachers training, other secondary schools accounted for 80.7 % except for special upper secondary schools. The proportion, obviously, was too high.

In terms of academic training of kindergarten teachers in different levels in 2010, at the undergraduate level, students in both normal universities and colleges were 17,206, accounting for 52.04 % of the total undergraduate students majoring in preprimary education, from which we could see that normal schools play an important role in kindergarten teachers training at undergraduate level. In the secondary level, students in special upper secondary schools were 158,359, accounting for 19.3 % of the total students in secondary schools, which have no dominant positions. Overall, there were 208,492 normal students majoring in preprimary education in normal schools, only constituting 25.4 % of the total number of students on campus. Thus, in the training of kindergarten teachers, normal schools do not play the main role currently. The main reason for this is that at secondary school level, non-normal schools have trained excessive kindergarten teachers. Kindergarten teachers training in this kind of schools must be restricted, if normal schools want to play the main part in teacher training.

In terms of comprehensive universities’ participation in kindergarten teachers training, there were 2,321 preprimary education major undergraduate students in comprehensive universities in 2010, accounting for 7.02 % of the total. There were 1,531 preprimary education major college students in comprehensive schools, accounting for 1.78 % of the total number. It is clear that comprehensive schools participate less in kindergarten teachers training.

4.2 Reconstruction of the Initial Training System for Kindergarten Teachers

Kindergartens face double problems, which are shortage of high-qualified teachers and excess of unqualified teachers. So, the training of kindergarten teachers could make adjustments from two aspects. First, increase the enrollments of preprimary education major students in undergraduate and college levels appropriately to enhance the academic levels of kindergarten teachers. Second, largely reduce the training recruitment of kindergarten teachers with high school diploma to balance the supply and demand. Though teachers with secondary school level education are needed in kindergartens currently, special upper secondary schools have trained much more kindergarten teachers than needed, especially other secondary schools except for special upper secondary schools. Therefore, reducing the training scale of kindergarten teachers in this kind of schools is one of the focuses to solve the problem of oversupply of kindergarten teachers.

To solve the problem of shortage of kindergarten teachers, a group of local normal colleges of preprimary education should be built, increasing enrollment in preprimary education major students on the condition of expanding schools with free-educated normal students. The plan of local schools with free-educated normal students should in accordance with the recruitment and training policies of central or provincial co-constructing schools to promote the construction of preprimary education professions in special upper secondary schools and enlarge the enrollment.

Preprimary education in China has lagged behind for a long time, and both quantity and quality of kindergartens, which cannot meet the educational needs of school-aged children, should be improved. According to the statistics collected by the Ministry of Education, the gross enrollment rate of three-year kindergartens was only 50.9 % in 2009. The “Outline” states clearly that “promote the development of preprimary education, in 2020, universal access to one-year preprimary education, basically universal access to two-year preprimary education and universal access to three-year preprimary education in conditional regions…implement the standard of kindergarten teacher qualification strictly, strengthen kindergarten teachers training and improve the whole quality of kindergarten teachers…we should focus on the development of rural preschool education to expand access to preprimary education in rural areas.” With the acceleration of development of preprimary education in China, the quantity and quality of kindergarten teachers become obstacles and the keys to construction of the initial training system for kindergarten teachers. Increasing the scale of kindergarten teachers training and its levels is the main way to promote the construction on the whole (Table 9.3).

Table 9.3 The current conditions of the number and academic levels of kindergarten teachers and the predicted targets (ten thousands)

According to the prediction made by Development and Planning Office in the Ministry of Education, there will be 1,630,300 more kindergarten teachers in the next 7 years, while the proportion of secondary school level drops gradually, and the proportion of college, undergraduate, and postgraduate level increases. Therefore, between 2013 and 2015, 129,100 teachers are needed each year, while 232.600 are needed among 2016 and 2020 (see Tables 9.4 and 9.5).

Table 9.4 The comparison of the training scale of training institutions for kindergarten teachers and the need for kindergarten teachers in 2013–2020

Table 9.5 Prediction of kindergarten teachers in need in eastern, central, and western cities and countries in 2013–2016 (ten thousands)

But in terms of the training scale and levels of kindergarten teachers, data of 2010 show that kindergarten teachers were mainly educated in secondary school level (including special upper secondary schools), while college and undergraduate levels were far below secondary school level, no matter in number of students on campus or graduate, which was far less to reach the practical need. Therefore, taking the urgent need of preprimary education and the difficulty in reconstruction of kindergarten teacher training system in China into consideration, the outline to adjust the structure of initial training system for Chinese kindergarten teachers is as following:

Firstly, with the regional differences, the recruitment of preprimary education major students in non-normal schools should be reduced or stopped. These schools can choose to run the school with normal schools to cut down the scale of secondary-school-level training or transfer teaching resources to expand the training scale in college level and implement orientation training in rural areas.

Secondly, through upgrading of special upper secondary schools and combination with normal schools, previous teaching resources in special upper secondary schools could be used together to provide professional training in preprimary education. Meanwhile, in some western provinces lack of kindergarten teacher training institutions, we could build new normal colleges for kindergarten teachers to implement orientation training in rural areas.

Furthermore, according to regional differences, we could increase the training scale in college and undergraduate levels and encourage capable and comprehensive schools to set or increase postgraduate training, especially encourage comprehensive universities to join postgraduate-level training for kindergarten teachers.