Public vs private a tough choice

Updated: 2012-02-28 08:12

By He Dan and Luo Wangshu (China Daily)

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BEIJING - Parents choose privately funded kindergartens over good public ones for various reasons, but find that their standards vary widely in cost and quality.

After searching for four months, Li Ying, a migrant woman in Beijing, has just realized she can't afford to send her daughter to a good public kindergarten in her neighborhood.

Li said she visited all nearby kindergartens in the Jinsong area of Chaoyang district only to discover that she would have to pay at least 10,000 yuan ($1,588) to a publicly funded kindergarten as a sponsorship fee, on top of 1,500 yuan a month in tuition fees.

"My husband and I only earn 30,000 yuan a year, and it costs too much to send our daughter to a publicly funded kindergarten," Li, 22, said on Monday.

"I never imagined until now that going to a good kindergarten is as expensive as going to university."

Li, originally from a village in East China's Shandong province, has run a small shop with her husband selling purified water since 2008. They live in a 15-square-meter room, divided into three parts by stacks of water containers.

"Once this autumn term starts, we're going to send our daughter to a private kindergarten, where the care service and teaching quality cannot match the public ones," said Li, adding that it charges 500 yuan a month without sponsorship fees.

Wang Xiaoyan, deputy director of the National Center for Educational Development Research, said that private kindergartens cater for different demands by parents.

"The cheap private kindergartens satisfy the needs of lower-income families, such as those of migrant workers, while expensive private kindergartens always cater to families with a decent income," Wang said.

She added that the latter hired foreign teachers and that meant higher tuition fees.

In contrast, the parents of a 3-year-old boy nicknamed Baobao paid 60,000 yuan in 2011 for him to attend a bilingual private kindergarten with a good reputation.

"It is expensive, but education is priceless," said Baobao's 39-year-old mother, who with her husband both graduated from Peking University. He works for Proctor & Gamble and earns a "decent" salary.

The mother, who declined to give her name, said she tried to send her child to a good-quality public kindergarten at first. The one near her apartment costs 1,350 yuan a month.

"I rang a publicly funded kindergarten nearby but they always told me there were no places and asked me to ring again," she recalled.

She then decided to send Baobao to a privately funded kindergarten. "But an expensive one. I hope money guarantees quality."