As competition for places in elementary schools increases, more and more parents are sending their children to preschool in order to give them a better chance of being accepted into the best elementary schools.
Education expert Lian Fengqin says: “Many preschools combine as much knowledge as they can to meet the competitive situation ahead,” as many parents want their children to be prepared in the best way possible for their first year of elementary school.
This has resulted in many preschools swapping picture books and crayons for core subjects that would normally be found at school such as maths, English, and other foreign languages.
In March, the Ministry of Education recently released a statement saying that they would be addressing some of the problems affecting the national preschool system – one of them would be abolishing homework in a bid to decrease the pressure put on children at a young age.
Photo by ChinaStudyAbroad via Flickr
