Guangdong explores the characteristic plan of "good care for young children", and nursery institutions recover
Yangcheng Evening News reporter Cui Wencan He Ning
Who will take the children?
This is the most urgent problem that many families need to solve when they face the topic of "birth".
A reporter from the Yangcheng Evening News visited many nursery institutions and found that the nursery institutions that seem to have solved the problem of bringing children are also facing the difficulty of recruiting children.
This room is just what the family needs to bring a baby, and the nursery institution in that room is not as crowded as imagined.
Why is there such a gap?
status quo
There is demand for childcare, but the supply is obviously insufficient
At a press conference held by the National Health and Medical Commission on August 17, Hao Fuqing, deputy director of the Social Development Department of the National Development and Reform Commission and a first-level inspector, introduced that domestic surveys have shown that unattended infants and young children are the primary factor hindering fertility. More than one-third of the families have childcare needs, but the supply is obviously insufficient, especially the supply of inclusive services is in short supply.
Various studies and international experience also show that the development of childcare has a significant effect on reducing the burden on families and improving the willingness to bear children.
Nursery services are not new. As early as the 1960s and 1970s, many women entered factories and work units to become productive forces after giving birth to children. Nurseries came into being in order to share the care of employees' children.
With the development of social economy, nursery schools gradually disappeared.
In May 2019, the State Council issued the "Guiding Opinions on Promoting the Development of Infant and Young Child Care Services under 3 Years of Age" (hereinafter referred to as the "Opinions"), proposing to accelerate the development of various forms of infant and child care services and support social forces to develop infant and child care services. care services.
Many early education experts believe that the introduction of the "Opinions" can be regarded as a "sign" that the childcare industry has begun to enter the stage of standardized policy development.
Therefore, nursery institutions ushered in a new "first year" in 2019.
However, childcare institutions for 0-3 years old on the market are fundamentally different from childcare centres.
30 years ago, all the funding for nurseries came from the revenue of factories and units, which belonged to the nature of social welfare. Therefore, almost all nurseries were free. Even if some other expenses were required, the amount would be very small.
The childcare institutions on the market charge at least 2,000 yuan per month, and some even as high as tens of thousands of yuan.
"Who will take care of the children" is a difficult problem for many families.
Working mothers can take up to six months of maternity leave. Once the maternity leave ends, they will face the problem of bringing a baby.
Some families have the elderly to help, and some families will ask a nanny to help with the children.
For those families who have neither the help of the elderly nor are they worried about babysitting to take care of their children, childcare institutions are their inevitable choice.
question
Childcare 'a bit difficult'
Admission Difficulty
According to incomplete statistics, in 2019, there were 1,964 new centers related to early education and childcare in my country, of which 1,528 operated childcare business and 489 operated early education business, which means that my country's childcare industry has entered a stage of rapid development.
In July 2021, Yang Wenzhuang, director of the Population and Family Department of the National Health Commission, introduced at a press conference of the State Council Information Office that there are currently about 42 million infants and young children aged 0 to 3 in my country, of which 1/3 have a relatively strong demand for childcare services.
However, the survey shows that the enrollment rate of infants and young children under the age of 3 in my country is only about 5.5%, and the gap between supply and demand is still large.
According to the data of the OECD Family Database, in 2016, the average enrolment rate of children under 3 years old among the members of the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, an intergovernmental international economic organization composed of 38 market economy countries) was 33.2%.
There are 10 countries where the enrolment rate of children under the age of 3 exceeds 50%, of which Denmark has the highest rate of 61.8%, and Belgium, Iceland, France, Israel, the Netherlands, Norway and other countries are also close to 60%; there are 7 countries where children under the age of 3 enrol in kindergarten The rate is less than 10%, of which Turkey is the lowest at 0.3%; South Korea and Japan in East Asia are 53.4% and 22.5% respectively.
my country's enrollment rate is far below the world average.
high cost
Ms. Lu, who lives in Haizhu District, Guangzhou, will end her half-year maternity leave in September. Recently, she has been looking for a suitable nursery institution near her home.
According to her, since both the husband and wife have not retired in their hometown, and they don't want to take care of their children full-time, they thought of sending their children to childcare institutions.
"But I don't think there are four or five nursery institutions in the community." For her, the key point is that the price of the nursery institutions that she likes is too high, and the cheap nursery institutions can't accept such an environment. , don't worry about sending the child over, "I'm really struggling now, is it better for me to take care of the child at home full-time?"
There are many parents who have the same entanglement as Ms. Lu. Ms. Wang, who lives in Tianhe District, has recently been scared off by the high childcare fees.
As a working mother, Ms. Wang does not dare to resign easily, after all, all aspects of her child's expenses are in front of her eyes.
When the child was one and a half years old, the mother-in-law was unable to help take care of the child due to physical reasons, and the child could not go to kindergarten until the age of 3.
During the day, Ms. Wang can only find childcare institutions to help take care of her children.
Ms. Wang went to a childcare institution near her home for inspection. There was an institution that charged 5,000 yuan per month, and she was quite satisfied with the environment, courses, and teachers.
However, her own monthly income after tax is only 8,000 yuan. The couple's monthly mortgage payment is 15,000 yuan, plus childcare fees, 20,000 yuan per month, and her and her husband's wages are basically 20,000 yuan. "moonlight".
During the visit, the reporter learned that the number of public nursery institutions in the market is relatively small, mainly private and private nursery institutions.
In terms of price, private nursery institutions can also be divided into three categories: high, middle and low. The price of high-end nursery institutions is often around 8,000 yuan to 15,000 yuan per month; The price of end-care institutions is around 2,000 yuan.
Although the market demand of nursery institutions is strong, parents' ability to afford the price is limited, which is also a very important factor in the difficulty of recruiting nursery institutions.
Zheng Xiaoqun, the principal of the Roman Home Campus of Beance International Infant Nursing Center in Haizhu District, Guangzhou, told reporters that the institution was only renovated and put into operation in the second half of 2019, and it didn't take long for the epidemic to hit. devastating blow".
Zheng Xiaoqun said frankly that taking their garden as an example, more than 2 million yuan was invested in the initial decoration, and the monthly rent was more than 90,000 yuan.
The center's day care charges an average of about 4,000 yuan per child.
Zheng Xiaoqun said: "The rent and labor costs are deducted every month. Basically, the income and expenditure are balanced. If the enrollment in that month is not satisfactory, we will lose money accidentally. It is not easy for us to persevere."
The owner of a nursery institution said bluntly: "This business is not as profitable as I imagined. Excluding various expenses, sometimes I can't even earn my own salary."
Good teachers are scarce
According to a survey by the Guangdong Infant Care and Early Development Industry Association, various restrictive factors such as difficulty in site selection, difficulty in obtaining certificates, lack of teachers, and heavy operating costs have seriously affected the healthy and orderly development of social care institutions.
Among them, the problem of land use is particularly prominent. In densely populated communities, because the land use is limited or cannot meet the requirements of running a kindergarten, it is impossible to set up institutions, thus failing to meet the needs of community families for infant and young child care.
The scarcity of good teachers has also become a constraint on the healthy development of the industry.
Ji Qiuyang, director of the Early Education Teaching and Research Office of Guangdong Vocational College of Foreign Languages and Arts (hereinafter referred to as "Guangwai Art"), found that teachers are one of the most worrying factors for parents when choosing an institution.
At present, there is a problem that the qualifications of teachers are not uniform in the whole nursery industry, and the practitioners do not need special qualifications, and the early education institutions train themselves before starting their jobs.
There are various types of qualification certification, but the degree of specialization is low, teachers have little practical experience, and novice teachers account for the majority.
Less than 10% of teachers graduated from early childhood education majors or received training as nursery teachers.
Many early education institutions are unable to recruit professionally trained teachers, and often train candidates for one to two months before letting them rush to work.
analyze
Lack of professional teachers restricts the development of childcare
To achieve "good care" in childcare, it is inseparable from the training of high-quality teachers.
The reporter learned that the training of infant care talents in my country has initially established a system of secondary vocational-higher vocational-application undergraduate.
Taking into account the development needs of childcare, professional adjustments have been made in the Ministry of Education's "Catalogue of Vocational Education Majors (2021)", and "Infant Nursing" and "Mother-Infant Care" have been added to the "Infant Nursing" major in the secondary vocational education stage. ” major; in the higher vocational education stage, “Infant Development and Health Management” was renamed “Infant and Toddler Nursing Service and Management”; the name of the applied undergraduate major was “Infant and Toddler Development and Health Management”.
Although there are different training levels from secondary vocational education to applied undergraduates, there are very few applied undergraduates that actually offer early childhood education majors.
It can be said that the current preschool education specialty for 3-6 year olds is relatively mature, and the talent training system covers secondary school to doctoral degree, but the early education specialty for 0-3 year old infants is still concentrated at the specialist level. -The teacher training for 3-year-old infants is limited.
Early education and preschool education seem to both take care of preschool children, but the professional gap is not small. It can even be said that early education has higher requirements for teachers.
Ji Qiuyang said that in the early education major, the combination of medicine and education is a major feature of the professional setting, and knowledge of multiple disciplines such as infant growth and development, health care, and developmental psychology will become the content of professional courses; Still unable to accurately express their own needs, early childhood teachers also need to have some "invisible qualities", such as patience, love, recognition and care of infants and young children's emotions, etc.
The early education major under the Guangwai Art Preschool Education College mainly trains teachers for infants and young children aged 0-3. It began to recruit students in 2016, and now maintains an enrollment scale of 2 classes and 100 students per session. The first batch of graduates in 2019 reached 100% In recent years, the vast majority of graduates have entered the field of early education, and some of them have grown into industry leaders.
Even so, according to the data of the Guangdong Infant Care and Early Development Industry Association, in 2019, the total number of infant and child care institutions in Guangdong Province was 4,525 (institutions). Compared with the total number of institutions, there is a huge disparity.
"The lack of professional nursery teachers will become one of the biggest bottlenecks restricting the development of childcare in Guangdong and even the whole country." Ji Qiuyang said.
At the same time, batches of new schools will make efforts in early education.
In September this year, Guangzhou Preschool Teachers College will welcome the first batch of 50 students majoring in infant care and management.
Xi Xiaoli, head of the Preschool Education College of Guangzhou Preschool Teachers College, said that the positioning of this major is to take advantage of the school's preschool education advantages and professional background to cultivate students who can serve 0-3 year old infants and even the management of nursery institutions. Integrated and comprehensive talents.
Although the enrollment is full this year, Xi Xiaoli found that compared with the preschool education major, the infant care service and management major is not the most popular: "Our first batch of enrollment is not large, but the entrance The problem is actually more about the exit, and if the exit is good, speaking with facts, the entrance may not be a problem.”
Suggest
Nursery opens up inclusive exploration in the future
The "Guiding Opinions on Further Improving and Implementing Active Parenthood Support Measures" issued on August 17 this year pointed out that the development of the nursery industry will focus on increasing inclusive services.
Develop public nursery institutions, drive social investment, support employers, build community service outlets, explore family nursery models, and recruit 2-3 year olds in kindergartens with conditions. Expand the supply of inclusive services.
In fact, as early as 2019, the State Council issued the "Guiding Opinions on Promoting the Development of Care Services for Infants and Young Children Under 3 Years of Age", which proposed to increase the effective supply of inclusive child care services for infants and young children under 3 years old.
Ji Qiuyang's analysis believes that among the current childcare population, ordinary working families account for the majority. They are facing the pressure of work and life and send their children to childcare institutions. Such "passive childcare" will follow the successive introduction of childcare-related policies. , enjoy more policy care.
Xi Xiaoli told a reporter from the Yangcheng Evening News that in order for childcare institutions to enter into a healthy development, the teaching staff, talent training standards, and institutional construction standards must become more and more mature, and national supervision and professional support will become more and more systematic, and the professionalism of the industry will be improved. Stronger: "The state should increase the public welfare investment of 0~3 years old. With the support of the state, professional construction, talent training quality, industry stability, and the relationship between social institutions will be better."
Feng Liwen, executive deputy secretary-general of Guangdong Infant Care and Early Development Industry Association and director of the Standardization Committee, said in an interview with a reporter from Yangcheng Evening News that the current Guangdong nursery institutions are in a stage of recovery, from more than 5,100 in 2019 to today. There are more than 6,000 of them, thanks to the attention paid by the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee and the Provincial Government and Party Committees and Governments at all levels, and the promotion and implementation of relevant policies in various places.
However, she also reminded that institutions need to very objectively study and judge the current situation of the industry development and re-deploy new strategies for development.
At present, most institutions are private, and many policies are currently encouraging public medical institutions, labor unions, enterprises and institutions to provide inclusive and preferential childcare services. The development plan is to open up inclusive nursing places, public and private, private office assistance and other forms of nursing care, and explore more Guangdong-specific solutions to the problem of "no one takes a baby".
Feng Liwen said that childcare institutions should first focus on standardizing operations, speed up the application for registration and filing, and implement services around standards, so that scientific parenting is "evidence."
"All childcare institutions must be prepared to 'keep warm'," she reminded, "control costs, protect childcare spaces, accept subsidies, and do not expand blindly. On the premise of stabilizing the economy, develop quality, stabilize student sources, and ensure safety standards. On the premise of continuing to improve the overall service level of the organization.”
The Stone of Other Mountains
Germany encourages stay-at-home mothers to open nursery schools
The reporter interviewed Ms. Pan, a Chinese mother who lives in Germany, online.
She is the mother of two children.
According to Ms. Pan, kindergarten teachers are scarce professionals in Germany, and their entry barriers are not high.
The German government encourages new immigrants, especially stay-at-home mothers, to set up childcare at home or with others, or to become kindergarten teachers.
When looking for a childcare institution for 17-month-old Dabao, Ms. Pan had a comprehensive understanding of the childcare industry in Germany.
She said: "The youth bureau in every city in Germany provides a six-month early education vocational training every year. The whole training is free, and if you complete all the courses and pass the exam, the government also rewards 400 euros."
The class time of early education training is usually in the evening and on weekends. The course content includes how to become a kindergarten teacher in Germany, occupational requirements, how to open a kindergarten at home, geographical location requirements, children's language, children's education, children's psychology, children's rights, safety guidance , nutritional hygiene system, various legal responsibilities related to kindergarten early childhood education, how to communicate with parents, etc.
The language requirements for the participants are to reach the German B2 level, the health status is to have been vaccinated against measles, the educational requirements are to graduate from high school, and there is no criminal record.
Those who have graduated from the half-year early education training and passed the examination can open a nursery class at home, that is, become the "Tianma" in the German population, and can also cooperate with other "Tianma" to open a formal kindergarten, or go to a kindergarten as a kindergarten. teacher.
"It's a fixed career that won't make you rich, but guarantees an independent life," Ms. Pan said.
It is understood that childcare institutions in Germany generally accept children from 8 weeks to 6 years old.
Childcare fees vary from state to state.
Rebecca, a Chinese mother who lives in Leifa, Germany, is a mother of two children. When Dabao was more than one year old, she sent her children to a nursery institution.
She said: "Children over 2 years old in our state are free to send to daycare institutions or kindergartens. Children under 2 years old can also be sent to daycare institutions, and the cost depends on the family's actual income, less than 20 yuan a day. Euros. We have identified a nursery institution, and we signed a contract with the government, so once rights protection issues are involved, we can go directly to the government.”
voice
Choosing Nursery: From "Best Policy" to "Best Policy"
Every new mother should have thought about who will bring the baby, Lili (pseudonym) is the same.
When she was about to return to work, facing a baby who was less than half a year old, she also had a fierce struggle in her heart - raising a baby is a manual job, and the elders are old and probably incompetent; find a nanny and let a stranger take care of the young alone Children, I am really worried; resigning and bringing a baby seems to be the most beneficial to the growth of the child, but when the child grows up, can I return to the workplace smoothly?
Today's mothers are deeply influenced by the concept of "scientific parenting" and have "heavy concerns" on the way to bring their babies——
Pediatricians say: breast milk is the best ration for babies; psychologists say: the sense of security established before the age of 3 will have a lifetime impact on children; early education experts say: 90% of children's brain development will be before the age of 3 Complete, miss the golden period of intellectual development, and make up later with less effort... In a word: the high-quality companionship of parents before the age of 3 is very important.
But for dual-earner families, it is difficult to achieve such ideal infant care!
In this way, sending childcare institutions seems to have become the "best policy of the worst": during the day, there are teachers for scientific nurturing and early education, and high-quality parents accompany them at night.
The configuration of this nursery institution Lili chose is not the highest, but it is the best choice at the moment: close to home, reasonable fees, experienced teachers, and more importantly, this institution can accept more than 4 months of children. Babies, and many institutions on the market only accept babies over 1 year old.
During the day on every working day, Lili carries her pumped breast milk and uses a sling to carry her baby on the bus to "go to school".
After parting with the baby, go to work by yourself.
After get off work in the afternoon, carry the child home and play with the baby.
On weekends, I have to take the baby all day, which is a bit hard, but I can handle it.
At first, Lili was most worried about whether the child could adapt to an unfamiliar environment, but she found that the child's adaptability was beyond the imagination of adults.
The half-year-old baby eats, sleeps and plays games with his brothers and sisters.
In a collective environment, children "learn the same way" and gradually develop the good habit of sleeping through the afternoon and eating independently.
And Lili was finally able to get out of the hard work of raising a baby all day and return to the workplace, concentrating on work during the day and enjoying parent-child time at night.
Lili has secretly observed the state of her children in the nursery institution: she is very active when exercising and playing with other children, she is in very good condition, she is active and independent in eating and drinking; while at home, sometimes her parents neglect to take care of her. , the child can only "entertain himself" and seems a little lonely.
Like Lili, there are many mothers who send their children to day care institutions.
Some of them have no one to take care of them at home, and some of them choose to send them to nursery institutions on their own initiative when there are elders at home to take care of them.
A mother with a second child told Lili that when she gave birth to her eldest daughter, the husband and wife were busy with work, so they sent the child back to her hometown and asked her parents to help her. Due to serious psychological problems, the couple decided that no matter how hard or tired they were, they would take their second child with them.
Choosing childcare has become the first choice for this second-born mother.
Now, Lili is very grateful for her original choice. The "last policy" that she had to give her as a last resort has now become the "best policy" for parenting.