In China, kindergarten costs more than college

It costs more to send your child to kindergarten in Beijing today than it does to put him or her through college. As outsiders pour into the capital looking for work, and parents try to give their offspring an ever-earlier competitive advantage, scarce preschool places are commanding record fees.

“There are just too many kids and too few kindergartens,” sighs Li Jia, sales manager at a lingerie company, as she rescues her 2-year-old son’s toy car from beneath the sofa.

“The private ones are too expensive, and it’s really hard to get into a public one,” agrees her husband, Xing Jun. “I did not expect this when my son was born.”

It is almost impossible, according to parents and teachers, to find a reputable kindergarten in Beijing that charges less than 1,000 renminbi ($150) a month, which is a quarter of an average salary in the capital. Some charge five times that, putting intense strain on the budgets of even better-off young parents already burdened by heavy mortgages.

By comparison, tuition and accommodation at Peking University, the country’s best, costs only about 700 renminbi ($102) a month, thanks to heavy government subsidies.

And in Japan, another nation famously focused on a child’s education, two years of kindergarten on average costs 500,000 yen ($2,791 per year or $232 per month). But the price tag at elite schools can rise to 10 times that amount.

Still, the average Japanese worker makes about 10 times more than the average Chinese worker.

The Beijing education authorities are struggling to meet the rising demand, without much success. They have increased class sizes this year to 40 children, up from 35, and added classrooms for another 12,000 places, according to the Education Department of the Beijing city government. There are plans to add a further 12,000 in the near future, officials say.

But even that will leave a quarter of a million kindergarten-age children in Beijing – more than half the total – without places, according to a recent report by the Beijing Academy of Educational Science.

The pressure on kindergartens is particularly heavy at the moment because children born in 2007 – an especially auspicious year in the Chinese calendar – are coming up to preschool age. Beijing’s birthrate spiked in 2007, according to official statistics, jumping 25 percent from the year before to the highest total for two decades.

All this means that poorer Beijingers are forced to fall back on the traditional child-care solution in China – relying on the grandparents – since in most Chinese families both parents work. But Grandma is not good enough for many new parents in Beijing’s burgeoning middle class. They want their little darlings – all single children under China’s one-child policy – to get ahead from the word go.

“We are always comparing,” says Lu Qi, a 32-year-old technical manager at a BluRay DVD manufacturer who began last June to look for a kindergarten that would take his 2-year- old boy next September.

“If other parents are sending their children to preschool and you don’t, your child won’t have any playmates,” he worries. “Parents don’t want their kids to lose right from the starting line: If just one family sends his kid to kindergarten, everybody will.”

“If they don’t mix, they won’t learn to communicate properly,” adds Ms. Li. “We want our boy to learn social skills at kindergarten.”

Hao Jianqiu, headmistress of Donghuamen kindergarten near the Forbidden City, one of the most highly regarded in Beijing, says, “Parents are definitely paying more attention nowadays to preschool. Their children carry the whole family’s hopes on their shoulders; if their education is a failure, the family fails.”

“The good thing is that parents spend more today on preschool” Ms. Hao adds. “The bad thing is that it puts huge pressure on the children.”

It is common for 3-year-olds in Beijing kindergartens to learn English, and not unusual for them to take after-school classes in music, tae kwon do, or chess, which cost extra.

As a public school, whose teachers’ salaries are paid by the state, Donghuamen charges a government-approved 1,000 renminbi a month for basic tuition. But the kindergarten will be able to take only 110 of the 800 children who have applied for places next September, Hao says.

Mr. Xing put his boy, Xing Yuchen, down for Donghuamen, but he says he was given to understand that the toddler would stand a chance of being accepted only if he attended weekly preparation and evaluation classes with one of his parents. Neither his mother nor father could afford to take time off work to do that.

Two other reasonably affordable public schools in the district told Xing he did not stand a chance of getting his son in (because, he believes, he lacks the right connections).

The dramatic shortage of places in public schools has created a huge demand for privately run kindergartens, which can charge what they like for highly variable services. Many of them simply offer to look after the children, “but if that’s all I wanted I’d let my mother do it,” says Xing.

He has pinned his hopes on a city-run kindergarten that gives priority to Muslim children – Xing belongs to the Hui Muslim minority – but that school, too, is oversub-scribed. “One of my relatives is pay-ing 4,500 renminbi ($660) a month for kindergarten, and a colleague at work is paying 3,700 ($544),” Xing says. If the Muslim kindergarten option doesn’t work out, he will have to dig into his savings.

“We don’t want to spend that much, but if we have no choice, we will have to,” he says, shrugging. “We don’t want Xing Yuchen to be behind when he goes to elementary school.”

在中国，上幼儿园比上大学还贵

如今在北京，送孩子上幼儿园比供他们上大学还要贵。随着外来人口拥入首都求职，父母们在努力给自己的孩子争取早期竞争优势。稀缺的幼儿园名额正引发创纪录的费用。

“就是孩子太多，幼儿园太少”，销售经理李佳（音）叹气说道，她正把两岁儿子的玩具从沙发下面捡回来。丈夫邢君（音）也说：“私立幼儿园太贵了，进公立的又实在太难。儿子出生时我没料到这点。”

据家长和老师说，想在北京找到每月收费低于1000元（150美元）的声誉好的幼儿园几乎不可能。有些幼儿园的收费是这个数的5倍，甚至令那些已背上严重房贷负担的比较富有的年轻父母预算吃紧。

相比之下，由于政府大力补贴，中国最好的大学北大的学费和住宿费每月才700元人民币。

在日本，另一个以注重儿童教育而著名的国家，两年制的幼儿园平均每月费用为232美元。而日本工人的平均收入是中国的10倍。

北京教育当局正努力满足日益上涨的需求，但收效甚微。据北京市政府教育部门官员讲，他们把班级的规模从35人扩大到40个孩子，还为另外1.2万个名额 增加了教室。他们计划在不久后再增加1.2万个位子。但即使这样，北京还剩下25万学龄前儿童———占总数的一半多———没有（入园）名额。

目前幼儿园的压力尤其大，因为2007年（中国农历的特别吉利年）出生的孩子到了上幼儿园的年龄。据官方统计，2007年北京生育率猛增，达到20年来最高。

所有这些意味着，钱少的北京人被迫退回到中国传统的育儿办法———靠祖父母———因为多数中国家庭父母都要工作。但是，对处于迅速发展的中产阶层中的年 轻父母来说，仅有爷爷奶奶还不够。他们想让自己的小可爱从一开始就走在前面。“我们总是攀比”，32岁的技术经理陆琦（音）说，“父母们不想让孩子输在起 点。”

公立幼儿园位子的明显短缺，已造成对私立幼儿园的巨大需求。后者可以随心所欲地收费，服务千差万别。许多私立幼儿园只管看孩子，“可是如果我想要的就是这些，那我宁可让我妈来做,”邢君说。

幼儿园比上大学贵 代表委员建议实行幼儿教育免费

比上大学还贵的是什么？是幼儿园。“天价幼儿园”建园费动不动就上万。金猪宝宝到入园年龄，成都幼儿园今年纷纷涨价。教育部正在研究“学前教育”纳入13年义务教育。

“孩奴”是近段时间的新名词。从孩子出生，父母就被套上了“紧箍咒”，其中孩子上幼儿园的花销就让年轻的父母喘不过气来。为了解放“孩奴”，省人大代表、四川大学华西医院副院长曾智，省政协委员、四川大学华西医院党委书记郑尚维昨日就幼儿教育问题提出建议：将幼儿教育纳入公共服务范畴，实行幼儿教育免费。

代表建议将幼儿教育纳入义务教育

“当然，有一天将幼儿教育纳入义务教育体系，这是我最希望看到的”

现在网上流行一则脑筋急转弯：“比上大学还贵的是什么？”“出国留学。错，是幼儿园”。据了解，现在上幼儿园每月少则数百元，多则要数千元，一年下来少的也要花近万元，多的则要好几万元。一些年轻父母不断呼吁：幼儿园费用太高，比上大学还贵。

据曾智介绍，按照财政预算，四川省及成都市的教育经费都在逐年递增，成都市年增加达到了25%，但投入幼儿教育的经费却很少。据统计，一方面，有的公办幼儿园为了生存，开始收取捐资助学费(有的叫建园费)，金额从每年2000元至20000元不等;另一方面，一些私立幼儿园大量涌入，将孩子作为赚钱机器，建园费动不动就是上万，每月还要收取几百上千的保育费。“天价幼儿园”也就在这种环境下被催生了。郑尚维说：“(在这种环境下)幼儿园的价值取向存在一定问题，违背幼教原则”。

四川省教育学院教育学教授姚文忠称，从整体上看，国家对幼教投入不够，幼教从业人员及幼教人才不足，可能是幼儿园收费逐年上涨的一个原因。若想要改变幼儿园收费高的现状，最好把幼教纳入义务教育范畴。

由于我国规定“义务教育”是9年制，将幼教纳入义务教育的范畴要根据国家政策而定，但尽快将幼儿教育纳入公共服务范畴，加大政府财政投入力度，普及幼儿教育，强化幼儿教师队伍建设却可以做到。由于全省各地的财政收入不均衡，成都市可以作为试点城市先行。“当然，有一天将幼儿教育纳入义务教育体系，这是我最希望看到的”。

幼儿教育让家长“被自愿”

家长得交上一大笔捐资助学费，还要签“自愿捐赠书”，如今被戏称为“被自愿”

成都市民罗女士的孩子今年满3岁了，最近她正在为孩子入园的问题发愁。“我家住上同仁路，周围就两所机关幼儿园。但我们不是事业机关的人，两所幼儿园都说先要满足事业机关的孩子。”罗女士只得联系民办幼儿园，“联系了附近的几所，都说拿钱都不行。一所幼儿园说名额都排到2012年去了”。

据调查，2007年是民间60年一遇的“金猪年”。为了生个“金猪宝宝”，不少夫妇“扎堆”结婚和怀孕。而2010年，“金猪宝宝”全都到了入园年龄，造成各幼儿园“金猪”爆满。

由于名额有限，今年成都市幼儿园纷纷涨价，有的幼儿园几乎还翻了一倍。四川音乐学院幼儿园去年教育费为4800元，今年初就涨到了7800元。成都市第五幼儿园前年建校费为1800元，去年为3500元，今年已到4000元(提前一年预交)，三年一起交优惠每年300元。武侯区一家民办幼儿园建园费、学杂费也年年看涨：去年建园费为3500元，现在已达5500元，伙食费每月得缴700多元，兴趣班、英语和美术课等加起来费用近千元。

在成都收费较高的民办幼儿园金苹果和橄榄树等，年花费均超过5万元，而且还不容易入园。在费尽周折进了幼儿园后，还得交上一大笔捐资助学费。同时家长还要签“自愿捐赠书”，如今被戏称为“被自愿”。

“金猪娃娃仅仅是一个特例，不是主要原因。幼儿教育早就难堪重负，最重要原因就是政府对幼儿教育投入太少，公办学校无钱扩大规模，民办学校为了收钱追求高端。造成幼儿教育成了卖方市场，什么建园费、捐资助学费、教育费一窝蜂地上涨。”曾智代表说，“一个孩子读个幼儿园就可以把一个家庭压垮，这不得不引起我们的重视。要改变这种现状，只有将幼儿教育纳入公共服务范畴，切实解放这些‘孩奴’”。

曾智还建议，为了吸引幼教人才，稳定幼教队伍，我省应该修改《四川省中小学教职工编制标准试行办法》，将幼儿教师纳入教职工编制，将学前教育纳入管理体系。