Children exercise at the playground of Yide Kindergarten in Nanjing's Jiangbei New Area. [Photo/ourjiangsu.com]

Developing pre-school education is a key task in the construction of a high-quality education system in Jiangsu province. In recent years, the province has been bolstering its efforts to build its public pre-school education system.

For instance, Yide Kindergarten in Nanjing's Jiangbei New Area used to be a private kindergarten. Its childcare fee dropped from 1,900 yuan ($297.32) per month to 936 per month after it became a public kindergarten in September 2020.

Jiangbei New Area offered subsidies to kindergartens that transferred from being private to public. Yide Kindergarten used the subsidies on improving the quality of their childcare, such as renovating the kindergarten's environment and expanding the outdoor activity space for children.

"The price has dropped but the level and conditions of the kindergarten are getting better and better. There is a reading space for children in the game area," said a parent who approved of the Yide Kindergarten's improvements.

During the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20) period, Danyang, a county-level city in Zhenjiang, established 39 public kindergartens to meet the needs for pre-school education.

In recent years, the grade difference between public kindergartens has been gradually eliminated in various regions in the province.

According to Liu Yuanliang, director of Zhenjiang's education bureau, 70 percent of the kindergartens in Zhenjiang have been expanded or reconstructed, while over 90 percent of the kindergartens have met and surpassed the construction standards for provincial quality kindergarten construction. Children can be enrolled to the closest kindergarten near their homes without having to undergo an examination.