Two kids play with a robot at a kindergarten in Nanjing, Jiangsu province. [Photo/ourjiangsu.com]

East China's Jiangsu province has built a preschool education system that offers inclusive public services over the past decade, a provincial education official announced at a news conference held by the Ministry of Education on April 26.

Over the past decade, the number of kindergartens in the province has increased from 3,944 to 6116, of which 5,179 are provincial-level good-quality schools, while the number of preschool teachers has more than doubled, according to Ge Daokai, director of the Jiangsu Provincial Department of Education.

In addition, Jiangsu's investment in preschool education has risen to 20 billion yuan ($2.98 billion) from about 2 billion in the same period, said Ge.

Jiangsu in 2012 became the first province in China to issue a regulation on preschool education. It has since introduced a set of standards related to the organization of public kindergartens, resource allocation, and other matters.

Nanjing, the capital of the province, has also been intensifying efforts to improve its preschool education. Its investment in the sector currently accounts for 11.6 percent of its educational expenditure, 5.3 percentage points higher than in 2012. The city has added, expanded, and renovated 535 kindergartens over the past decade. Admission quota has also risen by more than 130,000.

For example, the Tianfuyuan Kindergarten in Gulou district of Nanjing, which has been open for more than 60 years, received funding from the Nanjing municipal education bureau to improve its infrastructure, information technology equipment, classrooms and other facilities last year, said Chen Jing, the headmaster.

Liuhe district in Nanjing also spent 20 million yuan to improve the 12 kindergartens in its rural area in 2015.