BEIJING: Lawmakers and political advisers have called for the better allocation of education resources in preparation for a drop in student numbers due to the country’s declining birthrate.
They said while urban areas are likely to still have large numbers of students in the short term, they need to prepare for a sharp decline of school-aged children as the number of newborns has dropped significantly in the past several years.
However, they said the declining number of new births can offer schools the chance to reduce the size of each class and provide students with higher quality education. There was an increase in births after China introduced the second-child policy in 2016, with 17.86 million recorded that year. However, according to the National Bureau of Statistics, the country only had 9.02 million births last year, down from 9.56 million in 2022.
Experts said the increase of newborns in 2016 and the significant drop in the last two years means schools need to prepare for a jump in the number of students, followed by an abrupt decline a few years later. A notice issued by the Hunan Provincial Education Department in November asked local authorities to better allocate education resources for the next five to 10 years based on the birthrate, urbanization and the change in the number of school-aged children.
The province plans to build new public kindergartens in densely populated urban areas while no new kindergartens should be established in rural areas. It also encourages kindergartens with good conditions to offer daycare services to children 2 to 3 years old. –The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
