The way to early childhood education equity - policies to tackle the urban-rural disparities in China

Abstract

Protecting children’s development rights and promoting social equity are the priority and core tasks of the Chinese government and international community. Currently, the inequity of early childhood education (ECE) in China is still severe. The disparities between urban and rural areas are the main contributors to this situation, which are manifested in ECE opportunities, process, and outcome. This research tries to address the inequity issue and evaluate the policies the Chinese government has taken to tackle the inequity. With a policy analysis approach, the research analyzed the official data, documents, policy papers, and laws in order to construct a clear picture of Chinese ECE disparities and the achievement and challenges of the relevant ECE policies. In this article, the background of the urban and rural ECE disparities will be first introduced, followed by the detailed analysis of the disparities in ECE opportunities, process, and outcome. Then the article will describe and analyze the official measures and policies that are employed to tackle the ECE disparities, including the institutional foundations for rural ECE development, optimized allocation of ECE resources, improved rural kindergarten teachers’ qualification system, enhanced ECE funding system, and strengthened supervision and evaluation system. The article will also evaluate the effectiveness of the policies and give the implications that can help the further ECE policy-making process.

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