Guangzhou to build more kindergartens to meet demand

Guangzhou's educational department has promised to build more kindergartens in the months ahead to meet the growing demand due to the relaxation of the country's family planning policy three years ago.

"Next year will be the peak year for children going to kindergartens after the policy was relaxed. We will get ready for the situation," said an official in charge of kindergarten construction at Guangzhou city bureau of education.

To this end, special preferential policies will be introduced to encourage construction of both State-owned and private-run kindergartens in the following months to meet the big demand, the unnamed official was quoted as saying by Guangzhou Daily.

Official statistics revealed the Guangdong provincial capital has registered a total of 1,821 kindergartens citywide, with 31.7 percent being State-owned. By 2020, the number of State-owned kindergartens is expected to reach more than 50 percent, said the official with Guangzhou city bureau of education.

According to the official, six of 10 babies born in Guangzhou last year are their parents' second child. "And more than 250,000 infants have been estimated to be born in the southern metropolis in 2019," said the official.

He said more than 183,000 children will go to kindergartens annually between 2018 and 2020 and that requires Guangzhou to construct an additional of more than 600 kindergartens in the near future to meet the demand.

"And that is a heavy pressure," he added.

In the city's Haizhu district alone, at least 30 new kindergartens will have to be built in the three years starting 2018, as the district's kindergartens are expected to recruit an additional more than 8,800 children before 2020.