The challenge of early childhood education in rural China

147 words Manuscript: 6175 words 1 Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy, Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China 2 Northwest Socioeconomic Development Research Center, Northwest University, Xi’an, China 3 Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA Abstract: The main goal of this paper is to analyze factors (accessibility, attendance rates and quality of preschools) that may be affecting the educational readiness of China’s rural children before they enter the formal school system. Using data from a survey of 82 preschools and 492 households in six counties in three provinces of China, this paper documents the nature of early childhood education (ECE) services and the educational readiness of children aged four to five-years-old in rural China. We present evidence that ECE services are seriously deficient. We show that China's rural children score much lower on standardized tests of educational readiness than their urban counterparts and that more than one half of the rural children in our sample are “not ready” to continue on to the next level of formal education, possibly due to the poor quality of and low participation rates in early childhood education. The main goal of this paper is to analyze factors (accessibility, attendance rates and quality of preschools) that may be affecting the educational readiness of China’s rural children before they enter the formal school system. Using data from a survey of 82 preschools and 492 households in six counties in three provinces of China, this paper documents the nature of early childhood education (ECE) services and the educational readiness of children aged four to five-years-old in rural China. We present evidence that ECE services are seriously deficient. We show that China's rural children score much lower on standardized tests of educational readiness than their urban counterparts and that more than one half of the rural children in our sample are “not ready” to continue on to the next level of formal education, possibly due to the poor quality of and low participation rates in early childhood education. Keywords; early childhood education, educational readiness, rural China Behind before they begin 2 Behind before they begin: The challenge of early childhood education in rural China By any metric, the performance gap between urban and rural students in China’s education system is wide. According to a recent study, the matriculation rate to tier one or tier two colleges among students in large cities is about 54% (Wang, Liu, Zhang, Luo, Shi, Rozelle & Sharbono, 2011). In contrast, fewer than nine out of 100 students from the poorest rural areas in China achieve entry to a tier one or tier two college (Liu, Zhang, Luo & Rozelle, 2011). Gaps in educational performance, however, emerge even earlier: While more than 80% of students in large city school districts attend high school, fewer than 30% of those from poor rural areas do (Wang et al., 2011; Ministry of Education [MOE], 2006a). The search for the reasons behind such low high school and college matriculation rates among poor rural students almost certainly needs to begin long before students and their families decide to leave the education system with only a junior high school diploma. One needs only to contrast the quality of the teachers or facilities to understand the deficits between rural and urban primary schools (World Bank, 2001; Wang et al., 2009). During the 1990s and early 2000s, per capita investment in the construction of facilities in urban areas was approximately four times greater than that in rural areas. Urban primary school students score far higher on standardized achievement tests than their rural counterparts (Ye & Gong, 2001). It is even possible that at least part of the reason for rural students’ poor educational performance can be found even earlier. Many educators—worldwide and in China—believe that a child’s education needs to begin before she enters the formal education system (Heckman, 2000; Bowman, Donovan, & Burns, 2001; GranthamMcGregor, Cheung, Cueto, Glewwe, Richter, Strupp, & the International Child Development Steering Group, 2007). Evidence from a number of studies suggests that a child’s educational readiness at the time she enters the formal school system (at age five or six) is an important indicator of how well the child will ultimately perform in school (Campbell, Pungello, Miller-Johnson, Burchinal, & Ramey, 2001; Schweinhart, 2007). A child’s school readiness, while in part determined by the care received from family and Behind before they begin 3 others before age six, is also affected by her schooling experience before primary school (hereafter, early childhood education, or ECE). Despite the importance of this stage of a child’s development, the literature in China is almost completely silent about the ECE experience in rural areas. In fact, since about two thirds of Chinese children still live in rural areas, improving ECE services in these areas is one of China's most pressing concerns. Although the Ministry of Education is officially responsible for promoting ECE in China, only a small number of ECE institutions are run by governmental departments and few of them are located in rural China. With only low levels of support from local governments, most ECE institutions in rural China suffer from unqualified teachers, poorly developed curricula and inadequate and poorly maintained facilities. Studies exist that describe the nature of China’s ECE— in both urban areas and rural areas (World Bank, 1999; Liang, 2001; Wang, 2003; Yu, 2005; Bi, Zhang, & Ren, 2007; Zeng, Zhu, & Chen, 2007); however, most of this literature is purely descriptive and has little empirical rigor. Nowhere could we find a study comparing the readiness of rural and urban children at an age immediately before students begin their schooling. As a result, it is difficult to gain clarity about the participation of rural children in ECE programs and its effect on their educational readiness. The purpose of the current study is to create a profile of the ECE experience in China’s poor, rural regions. Specifically, we seek to address three questions: (1) What is the nature of ECE service delivery in China’s poor rural areas, including factors such as student participation rates, student-teacher ratio, ECE teacher training, and overall quality of the facilities? (2) What is the overall level of educational readiness of rural children? (3) What is the impact of ECE participation on educational readiness?