The flow of kids that were born in so called “good years” causes a  “fever” of kindergartens and pre – schools and constitutes  a main reason for increasing admission fees haunting young parents in China.

China, besides being the most populated place in the world, competition literally starts from the very first days of one’s life. Chinese parents don’t want to leave their children behind, thus start the race to have their child attend the best possible kindergartens.

The demand for preschool education is the opportunity for many kindergartens with so called “high standard” to appear. According to Song Jinzhi – the principal of  Oriental Cambridge in Beijing, in these kind of schools the tuitions and fees are often higher by 1/3 than other kindergartens. 

The Montessori International School in Beijing that admits children from 18 months to 12 years, is one of the most expensive school in the city. One year of one child in this school costs from 80,000 RMB to 150,000 RMB (219M VND – 412M VND) depends on the level of the child.

Teachers from schools in Montessori system are showing their pupils ways to recognize different professions.  

Jason Kong – general director of the school admits that tuition has been increased in recent years.

Schools in Montessori system were established all over the world and implement Montessori approach. This method was found by famous Italian educations expert Maria Montessori in 20th century. The approach emphasizes the potential and initiative of young child, encourages them to learn per their interest instead of forcing them to learn things that were set by teachers.

According to Danny Ho – the general director of Montessori Teaching Center, Chinese parents are not discouraged by high tuition of schools with international  brand names as The Montessori International.

‘Many parents come to see me and express their desire to have their children attend the school’, Mr. Ho has revealed, ‘therefore we are considering opening new campus in Chaoyang District in September this year, despite the fact of having already three other schools operated in the system.

At current 3 campuses Montessori has nearly 300 pupils enrolled. Most of their parents are working for multinational companies or embassies. 

However, in opinion of Song Jinzhi – the principal of Oriental Cambridge some Montessori schools set tuition and fees too high in comparison to offered standard.

‘Some schools declare that they use Montessori methods. However, they charge for the services the price that they don’t deserve’, Song Jinzhi affirms.

Liang Zhishen – the expert of kindergarten studies in Beijing University stated that parents should not think that every Montessori schools are the best choice for their child.

‘Montessori kindergartens are usually more expensive than traditional schools as they need  special, unique teaching materials and equipments and they need to train their teachers frequently’, Professor Liang said. ‘However, it doesn’t mean that all Montessori schools operate as per their brand name.’ 

According to Beijing Daily among 1,266 kindergartens in Beijing 340 of them are private, others are jointed or receive subsidy from governmental organizations, companies.. Other normal kindergartens also  raise their tuition, especially the popular public kindergartens.

Jiang Zhuoyan – a young mother that has a son attending one of the best kindergarten in Beijing since 2005. He has finished preschool education in 2008 and cost in total 2000 RMB (5.4M VND) but now it would cost her 10 times more than before.

‘Nowadays the tuition might increase to the level of 30.000 RMB per year ( app. 82M VND).’ – Jiang said.

“Kindergartens are even more expensive than universities’ – a parent with Metallica nickname complained in an online forum.

“Beijing Daily” assures that the increase of tuitions is affected by “baby boom” period of  2006 – 2008.

To have a good date for the child’s date of birth, many parents decided to have children born in 2007 ( Year of Golden Pig among 12 Signs and is considered as a specially lucky year) and in 2008 – (also a lucky year as it’s a year of Olympic Games organized in Beijing). As a result in Beijing alone there were 400.000 children born in 2006 – 2008, whereas public kindergartens could admit only 230.000.

Vo Hien

http://dantri.com.vn/c25/s25-380445/sot-truong-mau-giao-danh-cho-con-nha-giau.htm