Abstract
Abstract The unbalanced development of preschool education in different regions severely hinders the process of universalizing preschool education in Mainland China. Using the method of cluster analysis, this paper examined the extent to which the development of preschool education varied in different regions, on the basis of the gross preschool enrollment rate, student-to-teacher ratio, percentage of preschool teachers with a college diploma or above, and per-child preschool education spending index in the year of 2011. This paper suggested 31 provinces in Mainland China be divided into three developmental tiers according to their developmental status of preschool education, and explored each tier’s characteristics in their development of preschool education. One significant finding was that the regional disparities in the development of preschool education correlated with the regional economic disparities in Mainland China.
Highlights
Given the importance of preschool education realized by the Chinese people and the increasing investment put into preschool education by the Chinese government recently, it is not surprising that both the number of preschools and the number of enrolled children have drastically increased (Preschool usually refers to full-day programs serving 3- to 6-year-old children with focus on education and care in Mainland China)
The remaining seventeen provinces fell into Tier 3; the last tier occupied 54.84 percent of 31 provinces in Mainland China, which showed that the development of preschool education in Mainland China is still at a low level
The authors discuss the unbalanced development of preschool education in 31 provinces in Mainland China
Summary
Given the importance of preschool education realized by the Chinese people and the increasing investment put into preschool education by the Chinese government recently, it is not surprising that both the number of preschools and the number of enrolled children have drastically increased (Preschool usually refers to full-day programs serving 3- to 6-year-old children with focus on education and care in Mainland China). Wei and Song (2011) further investigated the unbalanced development of preschool education in eastern, central and western China from the perspective of education equity. They found that glaring developmental gaps among three different regions is growing.
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