HAPPY CHILDHOOD FOR ALL: Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao holds a child at Hufanglu Kindergarten during an inspection of preschool education in Beijing on November 2, 2010 (HUANG JINGWEN)

The launch of the pilot programs indicates the reforms are ready to set off at full steam.

Removing bureaucracy

During an online chat with Internet users on February 27, 2010, Premier Wen Jiabao called for the elimination of the education bureaucracy, a problem that plagues China's educational development.

"I hope the administrative rankings of colleges will be removed," Wen said. He said another way to boost educational development is to have schools run by educationalists. He defined "educationalists" as those who love to teach and know how to teach, and those who have been teachers for their entire lives.

"If the head of a school is changed every two or three years, that school will never become excellent," said Wen.

In the 2010 rankings of the world's most prestigious universities, compiled by London-based Quacquarelli Symonds Network, the Chinese mainland is not represented on the list of the top 10 universities in Asia. The highest-ranking higher learning institutions from the Chinese mainland are Peking University at No.12 and Tsinghua University at No.16, clearly outperformed by their counterparts in China's Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and South Korea.

Commentators said the key for China to build world-level universities lies in authorizing the educators, students and society to assess the quality of education, allowing professors to conduct academic research with full freedom and empowering students to participate in university administration.

In June 2010, when Huazhong Normal University elected its new academic committee, an ordinary linguistic professor was appointed the head of the committee, breaking the university's norm that the president led the academic committee. Only one administrative leader of the university stayed on the 23-member committee.

"My intention to quit the position as head of the academic committee and recommend a prestigious scholar to replace me was to separate administrative powers from academic activities, which can be conducted in a more free environment," Ma Min, President of Huazhong Normal University and a famous historian, told People's Daily.

Later in 2010, two professors at Huazhong Normal University were about to lose their titles during the university's hiring process after failing to publish as many papers as the university requires. But they maintained their titles due to the recommendation of the academic committee based on their excellent academic levels.

However, the reform to eliminate the education bureaucracy in institutions of higher learning may have a long way to go.

According to a report in Outlook Weekly, in some universities that had conducted reforms on separating academic powers from administrative powers in 2010, the administrative leaders are still heads of major research projects, winners of awards for excellent teachers and have the final say in how reforms should be carried out. "Reforms that are up to administrative leaders cannot truly eliminate the bureaucracy," said the report.

The South University of Science and Technology of China in Shenzhen, south China's Guangdong Province, said at the end of 2010 it would begin recruit students in spring of 2011 and grant degrees to its students independently. Before that, the university failed to get approval from the Ministry of Education to enroll students, though it had raised sufficient funds and formed a strong teaching team in more than three years of preparation. (See pages 22-23 for more)

Universal preschool education

Soaring kindergarten fees and shrinking access have become top concerns for parents with pre-school children due to the shrinking of government funds for kindergartens.

In Beijing, a city with a population of more than 17 million, the number of licensed kindergartens has dropped from 3,056 in 1996 to 1,266 in 2010, according to the Beijing Municipal Commission of Education. In front of some public kindergartens in Beijing, it is not unusual for hundreds of parents to queue up for hours to reserve a spot for their children.

Many children in China's countryside don't receive preschool education at all since parents find kindergartens unavailable or unaffordable. Statistics in 2009 showed that there were a total of 138,000 kindergartens in China with 26.58 million students, which means that nearly half China's children have no access to preschool education.

Nationwide, the number of public kindergartens has been declining steadily since 1993. By 2007, the number of public kindergartens in China had shrunk from 102,000 to 5,063 while private kindergartens were growing at an annual rate of 25 percent during this period, according to China News Service.

Zhu Yongxin, Deputy Director of the Chinese Society of Education, told China News Service the trends show the government denies preschool education as part of public welfare and fails to invest enough money into the preschool education. Zhu said the governments of 10 provinces allocated no special expenses for preschool education and public kindergartens were not available in a large part of rural areas in central and western regions in 2007.

Regarding preschools as the weakest part of our country's education system, the State Council released a document with 10 suggestions on improving China's preschool education in November 2010.

The State Council encouraged more favorable policies to promote communities, rural areas, and social organizations to establish and support kindergartens.

The State Council also urged local governments to allocate special funds for kindergartens and to especially focus on rural areas, ensuring their teaching materials, books and toys are adequate.

Meanwhile, county-level education authorities were instructed to conduct thorough checks on unlicensed kindergartens and be strict and careful in approving and administering preschool institutions.

While urging provincial governments to make specific tuition standards in accordance with development levels and people's income in different regions, the State Council said a guideline on kindergarten tuitions would be released later this year.

In addition, the government will release an official guideline for preschool children's study and development, aiming to build up a team of outstanding kindergarten teachers who care about children, said the document.

Officials said that the government would finance private kindergartens through purchasing their services, sending government-paid teachers and offering tax exemptions.

Since children having no access to preschool education are mainly from rural areas in central and western regions, the government will focus on investing in building a kindergarten network to achieve universal coverage and improving facilities of existing kindergartens.