With the start this year of China's "two-child policy", it's estimated that the country will need nearly 110,000 more kindergartens by the year 2021.
Compared with 209,900 kindergartens across China in 2014, it's estimated that about 319,500 kindergartens will be needed by 2021.
In addition, nearly 2 million teachers and 1.37 million child-care workers need to be added to the preschool education sector in the same period.
According to a report published in "Studies in Early Childhood Education" magazine, the "two-child policy" will begin to affect the pre-school education sector in 2019 with the number of children eligible for preschool education reaching a peak in 2021- about 66 million children being eligible for preschool education, and 58 million of them going to kindergartens.
The number will begin to decrease year by year after 2021, with an estimated 42 million children eligible for preschool education by 2035.
However, the requirement of expenditure on preschool education will keep increasing from 2016 to 2035. Compared with about 65 billion yuan (around $9.5 billion) expenditure on preschool education in 2013, the requirement for 2035 will be about 652 billion yuan, with a shortfall of 587 billion yuan.
The report suggests there should be a planned expansion of preschool educational resources and teacher training up to 2021, without ignoring educational quality, to guarantee the rights of eligible children to receive preschool education. After 2021, attention should be paid to the improvement of teachers' quality and diversity of education, to further enhance educational quality, says the report.
