Our reporter Zheng Tianhong, Zhao Wanwei, Zhou Chang
The "Several Opinions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on Deepening the Reform and Standardization of Preschool Education" stated that by 2020, the coverage rate of inclusive kindergartens across the country will reach 80%, and public kindergartens will reach 50%. Educational public service system.
The picture shows the Yale Oriental City Kindergarten in Mawei District, Fuzhou City. Photo courtesy of respondents
This year, in order to complete the target, all localities will accelerate the transformation of for-profit private kindergartens. The reporter's investigation found that some of the for-profit private parks that "retired" faced the dilemma that the initial investment could not be recovered; some of the private parks that were converted to inclusiveness were not compensated for, and they were maintained by means of lowering teacher salaries and interest class fees. School quality.
People’s livelihood measures aimed at solving the “difficulty in entering the garden” and “expensive in entering the garden” have caused the dilemma of dissatisfaction among parents, garden operators, teachers and developers in some places. Industry experts said that for profit-making private parks to transfer to general or public, it is necessary to implement precise policies to avoid "one size fits all" and maintain the enthusiasm of preschool education practitioners.
Transition to general public "unacceptable"
Yale Oriental City Kindergarten in Mawei District, Fuzhou City is a for-profit kindergarten supporting the community. In the eight years since the school was established, it has ranked first in the district for four consecutive years in the annual inspection and evaluation of private kindergartens by the local education bureau.
This year the kindergarten received a notice that the school site should be withdrawn and handed over to be used for reorganization of inclusive private kindergartens.
The Yale Oriental City Kindergarten signed a lease with the community developer until December 31, 2032, but the latter considered the previous lease to be invalid on the grounds that the kindergarten would be transformed. After resuming school under the epidemic, the developers stopped water and electricity and asked them to move out.
The kindergarten believed that it was neither at fault for improperly running the school, but also promised in writing to the government that it would be willing to change to an inclusive kindergarten on the original site, and would not accept the developer's unilateral decision, so he took it to court.
However, the garden ultimately lost the case. The education department has not given a clear reply so far, and the teachers and students in the whole campus do not know whether the school will start as scheduled in September.
In the recently issued "Notice of the Mawei District Education Bureau of Fuzhou City on Printing and Distributing the Work Plan for Kindergarten Enrollment in Fall 2020", the enrollment information for the kindergarten in Yale Oriental City is expressed as: "planned to be an inclusive kindergarten", monthly tuition fee One column says "to be determined".
Sun Ruixue Kindergarten, supporting the Shidai Rose Garden Community in Baiyun District, Guangzhou, is a for-profit private kindergarten. The school started in 2006, and after the lease expired in 2015, the park was reluctant to move out. The local education department gave it a 4-year transition period and is scheduled to be converted into a public kindergarten from September 2019.
Until May last year, the garden was still reluctant to leave. However, the 5,000 yuan per month for childcare and education has dissatisfied the residents of this non-high-end community for many years, so the parents jointly petitioned. Finally, one month later, the local education department forced the kindergarten to delist the kindergarten and changed it to a public school, charging 1,000 yuan per month. .
After Guangzhou’s Zhujiang Dijing Kindergarten was converted to a public kindergarten this year, the average teacher’s salary dropped from 3,000 yuan to 1,000 yuan per month. Festival fees, bonuses and even winter and summer vacations were cancelled. The kindergarten operator told the teacher that if you want to guarantee the original income, you must cooperate with the company's request for children to enroll in interest classes.
Zhujiang Dijing is a high-end community, and the owners generally have higher requirements for preschool education. Some parents of children have suggested that they hope their children can receive a better education, and they don’t care if the tuition fee drops from more than two thousand yuan to more than one thousand yuan. “If the teacher’s income is not decent and the popular will be unstable, which affects the quality of running the kindergarten, it is better not to transfer to the public” .
The garden party cries out the wrong parents
The reporter's investigation learned that after the transformation of for-profit private kindergartens, there are problems such as the failure to recover the initial investment, the deterioration of the quality of the kindergarten, and the increase in the burden of parents.
A person in charge of a chain kindergarten who did not want to be named frankly said that the biggest difficulty encountered after the transformation is how to negotiate and resolve historical issues such as rent and asset evaluation.
"In a certain place in Dalian, after three of our high-quality high-end parks were taken back and converted into public parks, they were told that they were unable to pay our initial investment compensation due to local financial difficulties." The fee is 580 yuan/student/month, and the kindergarten subsidizes 365 yuan/student/month. “The total fee is barely enough to pay teachers’ salaries, but the competent authority requires that the kindergarten operation and maintenance costs are still borne by us, which makes the kindergarten unable to maintain it.”
The reporter combed through the relevant cases and found that for many private parks in the community, the lease period with the developer is generally 10 to 15 years. Due to the long cycle, cost recovery is amortized and recovered year by year, and there are basically no private parks that can make profits in the first five years. If, after the transformation, the initial investment and accumulated losses are not compensated enough, or even "write off", it is very easy to cause conflicts.
"Our lease has not expired, and the developer wants us to stop running the park, so we seek a solution through judicial means, hoping that the developer will compensate us for the losses we invested in the previous period, but we lost the lawsuit." said Zhang Haitao, the representative of the Yale Oriental City Kindergarten. The court held that this was force majeure. According to state regulations, the site for the park was taken back by the government.
Zhang Haitao has many things he can't understand: "Since the property rights belong to the government, why should the real estate developer collect our rent? Should we return it? Who should compensate or redeem the buildings, facilities and fixed assets we build on the site? Does it infringe on the lawful rights and interests of students and teachers in school if the door is locked without water or electricity?"
In addition, after the transfer of private parks to the public, some localities adopted a public commission model to require the organizers to continue to operate due to lack of funds. However, they required the implementation of a few hundred yuan of publicly-run fees, which was far from the annual funding of local public parks. In order to survive, kindergartens either illegally charge fees or reduce costs to recruit intern teachers.
The person in charge of the aforementioned chain kindergarten said: "We propose to calculate subsidies based on publicity and audit costs, and the relevant departments responded that the subsidies cannot be increased. You can reduce the cost by lowering teacher salaries or re-hiring teachers with low academic qualifications and low wages. Don’t update, don’t add input."
If teacher income is subject to certain restrictions, it will directly affect teacher training. After Guangzhou Zhujiang Dijing Kindergarten was converted to a public operation this year, all the employees of the kindergarten have been complaining because of their welfare benefits. The person in charge told reporters that the average salary of teachers has dropped from RMB 3,000 to RMB 1,000 per month. Festival fees, bonuses and even winter and summer vacations have been cancelled, and some teachers have resigned.
The reporter visited and found that in Beijing, inclusive kindergarten teachers can get a good after-tax income of about 5,000 yuan. If the kindergarten pays rent, etc., it can barely stay in Beijing. If the kindergarten does not pay the rent, it will be difficult for the teacher to stay. A large number of kindergarten teachers are always at the "newcomer" level, which is bound to affect the overall quality of education.
The transfer of for-profit private gardens to public or general purpose is to solve the problem of "difficulty in entering the kindergarten" and "expensiveness of entering the kindergarten" for the masses. Some parents do not have obvious "physical feeling" about this, and some even feel that the burden has not fallen but increased.
After the transformation of the kindergarten where the child was located, parents complained about it and did not provide quality courses and extended services. Parents had to pick up their children at 4:30, which caused great difficulties to dual-career families. Parents were concerned about their children’s talents, sports, art, etc. However, the kindergarten no longer provides services, and parents have to spend more money to participate in social training institutions. Not to mention the higher costs, the quality cannot be guaranteed.
The parents of Guangzhou Pearl River Dijing Kindergarten Wu Ke worry that due to the cost, it is difficult for the kindergarten to recruit good teachers, and it is the children who are ultimately affected.
Chu Zhaohui, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Educational Sciences, said that in order to achieve the goal of 80% inclusive parks and 50% public parks, some localities adopted compulsory measures to solve the problem, which led to the withdrawal of some private parks. If the private parks are withdrawn, the government will invest more money in office parks. In the case of insufficient resources, ordinary people may taste the sweetness in a short period of time, but in the long run, higher fees may appear.
Increase investment and implement precise policies
At present, with regard to the conversion of supporting kindergartens in the community to public or inclusive kindergartens, the state advocates insisting on "one kindergarten, one policy" and "one kindergarten, one case" instead of "one size fits all".
Many private kindergarten practitioners and industry experts suggested that three factors must be considered in order to implement precise strategies for transformation.
The first is local economic strength. Public kindergartens need public financial investment, not only money, but also venues and sufficient teachers. The level of social and economic development in each place is different, and the reserve of preschool teachers is also different, so it depends on whether the local government has the financial, human, and material resources.
The second is the overall development of local public kindergartens and private kindergartens. If there is a serious shortage of public parks and the quality of private parks is relatively low, huge government investment is needed to change the status quo; if the number of public parks is not enough, but the quality of private parks is not bad, then private parks can be allowed to continue. Willing to transform into an inclusive park, the government will provide inclusive subsidies to ensure that "parents spend less and the quality remains unchanged." For places with financial difficulties, if inclusive subsidies cannot be granted temporarily, some supporting preferential policies can be considered.
The third is the wishes of the parents. Whether the supporting kindergarten in the community must be converted into an inclusive kindergarten depends on the wishes of most parents of children. If this community is a high-end community, parents have high expectations for their children's education and are willing to spend more money, and they may not necessarily be converted to Inclusive Gardens.
Chu Zhaohui said that the current funding for early childhood education is low. According to 2017 statistics, early childhood education funds accounted for 7.6% of the total education investment; among the financial investment, early childhood education funds accounted for less than 5%. To solve the problem of children entering the kindergarten from 3 to 6 years old, the government must allocate at least 9% of the proportion of funds to maintain normal operations.
Yang Zhibin, the former vice president of the China Private Education Association and the second chairman of the pre-school education committee, believes that the inclusive development of pre-school education is to realize the strategic thinking of "children’s education". The inclusive park is the definition of a kindergarten, which is specific and micro-level. "We cannot simply focus on the construction of private inclusive parks with the vision of preschool education development."
Industry experts called for measures to be taken to effectively improve the treatment of kindergarten teachers in private inclusive kindergartens. Provide rewards and subsidies to private kindergarten teachers, so that they can enjoy the same social respect, the same training opportunities and the same job allowances as public kindergarten teachers.
Some grassroots educators said that the education department should participate in urban planning. It is necessary to seek the opinions of the education department for the communities in this area and the number of kindergartens to be equipped. It is impossible to ignore the kindergarten in urban planning and design.
(At the request of the interviewee, Wu Ke is a pseudonym)