kindergarten

According to a China Daily report, the average annual salary for a Chinese kindergarten teacher ranges from RMB 9,600 to RMB 36,000. However, one foreign teacher from the Etonkids Huizhi Bilingual Kindergarten’s Datunli campus (which opened in 2010 and now has 100 pupils in total ranging from ages 2-6) claimed that a teacher at the school could earn between RMB 120,000 and RMB 156,000 a year “depending on experience and qualifications."

• Read more

A first-class education at an affordable price awaits your child

It's not often in this city of skyrocketing costs that you come across some good news about the rising cost of education.

In a merciful recognition that not everyone is here on the proverbial "expat package" (and therefore have their children's tuition taken care of by their employer) the House of Knowledge Kindergarten has initiated a scholarship program for students that is entirely need-based.

With locations in Shunyi and Chaoyang Park, HOK offers a multilingual (English, Chinese and German) learning environment for children 12 months to 6 years old.

• Read more

Chocolate is no match for the allure of the iPad. Photo from Zhejiang Online

A decidedly modern spin on the old "don't accept candy from strangers" rule has taken place at a kindergarten in Hangzhou, where almost a third of all students were easily lured into the hands of a stranger by none other than the Apple iPad.

According to a story on Zhejiang Online that was eventually picked up by Sohu, the Dacheng Experimental Kindergarten was doing an exercise to teach children to avoid strangers on May 18 when they realized the true addictive properties of Apple's hot device. Interestingly, the iPad was not originally intended to be part of the experiment.

• Read more

Chinese kindergarteners: there's a lot more to come over the next decade
 

If you've been in Beijing for more than a few years with school-aged children, you're probably familiar with your kids often outlasting their teachers.The dual forces of a baby boom around the time of the Beijing Olympics and an increased number of private schooling options means that kindergartens are often scrambling for qualified help, and teachers are in such high demand that there's always another teaching job around the corner.

Expect this to get a lot worse. Beijing is going to be facing a shortage of about 15,000 qualified kindergarten teachers over the next 3 years, according a report translated from the China Youth Daily by CRI English.

• Read more

Beijing has scrapped plans to require all kindergartens to offer English by 2015. Image from http://www.ebeijing.gov.cn/

Beijing has scrapped plans to require all city kindergartens to offer English language training by 2015, the China Daily and other news sources report.

A shortage of qualified teachers was sited as one of the primary obstacles to realizing the ambitious plan, which was proposed last July as part of an internationalization project by the city's municipal foreign affairs office.

Other bits and bobs remain on the plan, which if realized will help the city's overall strategy to make the city more hospitable to international visitors and residents.

Among the plans to be realized by 2015:

• Read more

Parents have been understandably nervous after last year's alarming spate of schoolyard assaults so it's small wonder that some schools are looking to capitalize. The China Daily reports that a kindergarten in Chongqing is pushing a pilot program that will allow parents to monitor their kids in the classroom via online surveillance video:

"Most of the parents are connected to the Internet and do not mind coughing up monthly fees of 10-20 yuan ($1.5-$3) for the monitoring service, according to the headmaster of the kindergarten. The school has so far invested nearly 20,000 yuan on camera systems for five classrooms. Using the technology, the parents can log on to the website of the kindergarten with an authorized username and password from home or the office and watch the progress of their children at school."

• Read more