A Study On The Public Kindergarten Crunch From The Perspective Of Preschool Educational Resources Allocation

“What we now face is the contradiction between unbalanced and inadequate development and the people's ever-growing needs for a better life.”What president Xi Jinping pointed out in his speech delivered at the 19~thh National Congress of the Communist Party of China alarmed us to stress more importance to the problem of the unbalanced and inadequate development.The kindergarten crunch problem occurred during the development of China's preschool education is just a vivid reflection of the unbalanced and inadequate development in the preschool education public service field.With the adjustment of urban layout and the ever-growing number of births arising from the universal two-child policy,problems such as the structural shortage of preschool educational resources and the insufficient supply of local governmental public service have become increasingly prominent.In big cities such as Shanghai and Beijing,the kindergarten crunch problem presents itself as public kindergarten crunch because of the superiority of educational resources and lower expenses of public kindergartens together with the inadequate quota of such public kindergartens.The continuous construction,reasonable allocation and optimal configuration of public preschool educational resources associate not only with the ease of the kindergarten crunch problem and the satisfaction of public needs for public kindergartens but also with the realization of the balanced and high-quality development of preschool education as well as the reach of the projected goal of popularizing high-quality preschool education until 2020.As the national comprehensive educational reform pilot area,Shanghai has been promoting actively the construction and improvement of preschool education public service system since 2010,the year when the project of“improving governmental public service function of providing preschool education”was established.In accordance with the new issued Shanghai Three-year Preschool Education Action Plan(2015-2017),in order to ease the kindergarten enrollment pressure resulting from the rapid increasing of preschool-age children,the main task of the development of preschool education in Shanghai is still the continuous construction and rational distribution of preschool educational resources.This research chose Pudong New Area as the object,which has the biggest administrative area and the largest resident population among 16 municipal districts in Shanghai.Proceeded from the perspective of public preschool educational resources,this research was conducted based on the educational resources allocation theory and several research methods including literature review,case study and field investigation.Firstly,this paper illustrated the current situation of kindergarten crunch during the development of urban preschool education,including the construction history of preschool educational resources,the current situation of public preschool educational resources allocation and the structural characteristics.At the meantime,this paper specified that kindergarten crunch problem was shown via kindergarten selection crunch,high-quality kindergarten crunch,and nearby kindergarten crunch.Secondly,this paper analyzed the resources allocation related reasons for kindergarten crunch problem,which included the structural scarce of resources,the inequality of resources allocation and the unreasonableness of resources allocation.Thirdly,by highlighting the abundance,equality and effectiveness rules in educational resources allocation,this paper put forward the solution of optimizing resources allocation to ease the problem of kindergarten crunch.This research found that although some achievements have been made in promoting the construction and improvement of the preschool education public service system in Shanghai,the problem of kindergarten crunch faced by some of the preschool-age children in some areas should not be overlooked.In Pudong New Area,for example:Firstly,in the type of running kindergartens,the total number of public kindergartens in Pudong New Area ranks highest in Shanghai,but the proportion of public kindergartens is low.Secondly,in the level of running kindergartens,the number of superior public pres-school education resources,such as the municipal demonstrative kindergartens as the example,is relatively small.Thirdly,in the spatial layout,public kindergartens and municipal demonstrative kindergartens converge in spatial distribution,showing a marked decline from northwest to southeast features,and in some population concentration areas,the coverage of public kindergartens is even not realized.As the responsibility principal part of solving the problem of kindergarten crunch,local governments are not only the suppliers of public education resources,but also the regulators of educational resources.In view of the current status of unfair distribution,uneven quality and uneven distribution of preschool educational resources,in order to ease the problem of kindergarten crunch,especially the crunch of public kindergartens,local governments and education administrations still need to strengthen and optimize preschool educational resources allocation,so as to improve the quality and equalization of the preschool educational resources and ensure education equity.