[TheEpochTimesNovember192023](Epoch Times reporter Liu Yi reported) An announcement in August this year from Linquan County, Fuyang City, Anhui Province, China’s largest populous county, showed that 50 local private kindergartens were closed. The news appeared on Baidu’s hot search list on November 19. As the population of the mainland decreases, the number of closed kindergartens is increasing. In 2022, the total number of kindergartens in the mainland will decrease by 5,610 compared with 2021.
An announcement issued by the county’s Education Bureau in August showed that 50 local private kindergartens have ceased operations, accounting for 11.8% of the total number of kindergartens in the county in 2022 and 24.5% of the total number of private kindergartens in the county.
Linquan County in Fuyang City is the most populous county in China, with a registered population of 2.293 million in 2022. Data from the county in February this year show that there were 58,243 children in kindergarten in the county in 2023, a 9.2% decrease from 2022. This is the fourth consecutive year of decrease, and the decline has sharply increased.
In recent years, as the number of births in mainland China has decreased, the number of kindergartens and the number of kindergarten students in the country have decreased.
The annual inspection of private kindergartens in Haikou ended recently, and the results showed that a total of 33 kindergartens were closed, accounting for 6.4% of the total number of private kindergartens in the country; in September this year, 17 kindergartens in Longhai District, Zhangzhou City were terminated, accounting for 7.8% of the total number of kindergartens in the district in 2022; Recently, six kindergartens in Ruian City under the jurisdiction of Wenzhou City have ceased operations.
Experts believe that the number of kindergartens will further decrease, mainly due to the continued decrease in the number of births in recent years.
According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics of the Communist Party of China, at the end of 2022, the mainland’s population was 1.41175 million, a decrease of 850,000 from the end of 2021. It was the first decline since the Great Famine in China from 1959 to 1961; the birth rate was only 6.77 per 1,000 people, the highest in 1949 lowest since.
In fact, the mainland’s birth population has continued to decline since 2017, from 17.23 million to 9.56 million in 2022, falling below 10 million for the first time.
In mainland China, there are 1 million to 2 million fewer newborns every year than the previous year. These are the “lost sources of students” for kindergartens.
In the most populous province of Shandong, the number of births in 2020 fell below one million for the first time, to only 870,000, a 50.8% decrease from 2016. Jiangsu will enter the era of negative population growth ahead of schedule in 2021, with a natural population growth rate of -1.1‰. Chongqing’s birth population dropped by 7.87% in 2022, falling below 200,000 for the first time since 1997.
Xia Jing, associate professor at Capital Normal University and director of the China Preschool Education Research Association, said in February this year: “In fact, the first round of kindergarten closures has already arrived.”
Xia Jing believes: “This year should be the best year.” It will become more and more difficult in the future. In the group of kindergarten principals, we have often seen kindergartens transferring a batch of tables, chairs and benches since last year. Many garden directors are still struggling, but the trend of closures is irreversible.
Editor in charge: Fang Xiao
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2023-11-19 05:33:22
