Peking University’s ‘China Institute for Educational Finance Research’ (CIEFR), in Chinese 北京大学中国教育财政科学研究所 published on 6.9.2021 a summary of its 2018-2020 large scale comparative evaluation of the impact of POF in Funing County, Wenshan Prefecture, Yunnan Province. Below are excerpts of the evaluation summary available in Chinese at

https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/7_wIHOhFEZu8hoYg6gSfWw

The "Preschools of the Future (POF)" project is an innovative exploration for the development of rural preschool education. The core of this model is that the government provides hardware facilities such as kindergarten, parents pay tuition fees which cover the majority of teachers' wages and basic operation, and public welfare organizations provide some teachers' salary subsidies and undertake teacher training and onsite guidance and M&E. The project team resides in the local area, works and lives with teachers in the local community, and provides monthly reports to the central school and the Education Bureau. The main characteristics of this model include: (1) the government provides basic school running conditions（ 2) Parents pay tuition fees, pay teachers' salaries and maintain basic operation 3) The project subsidizes teachers' salaries and daily operation funds, provides teachers' training, teaching materials and basic teaching aids in the project KG, and implements daily teaching on-the-spot supervision.

Background of evaluation:

By the end of 2019, the gross enrollment rate of preschool education in China has reached 83.4%.

Hence the main issue in development of preschool education in China is no longer the increase of the overall scale, but the provision of quality preschool education of vulnerable children from specific social groups and remote rural areas.

Purpose:

The main concerns of this evaluation include: 1) Project impact on children's development; 2) Process quality (mainly investigating the interaction between teachers and children); 3) Project impact on preschool teachers; 4) Cost effectiveness of the project model.

Method:

The research group evaluated 1338 children in 65 sampled kindergartens of 133 provided by the County Education Bureau, including: 1) all 26 project kindergartens. Among them, 15 were opened in 2017 and 11 in 2018, 2) 2 "County Center Kindergartens" as the benchmarking group, including the first kindergarten and the second kindergarten in the county, both of which are kindergartens with the highest education quality in the county 3) A total of 10 Township public kindergartens 4) 27 other private village kindergartens were selected by typical sampling.

Evaluation result:

The evaluation results show that the POF project kindergartens have brought relatively stable and acceptable quality preschool education resources to the local area; The cost of the project KG is relatively low; The project KG has a significant impact on children's overall development, especially cognitive development; The process quality of the project KG has been improved. The research group believes that this low-cost and acceptable quality development model of village kindergartens is a noteworthy and important model. At the same time, the research group put forward suggestions to further improve and improve the impact quality of the project, including paying attention to the development of children's non cognitive ability [at home], improving teachers' employment conditions [by government paying higher salaries], strengthening family intervention and so on.

Findings:

The data analysis results of children's family background information show that the family background of children in the project KG is the worst among all kinds of kindergartens: parents' years of education and family income are the lowest; The largest number of children in the family; The proportion of left behind children is the highest. The teachers in the project KG have the characteristics of the lowest average age, the lowest married proportion and relative high education; At the same time, the teachers in the project KG also have the disadvantages of the lowest teaching age, the lowest proportion of preschool education majors, low income and the highest teacher mobility.

The following is a brief report on the preparation of children for school, the process quality of children's class and the average cost of students.

1. Early Child development

The research data show that the POF project has a positive impact on children's development and the improvement of process quality. The implementation of the project has brought relatively stable and acceptable quality preschool education resources to the local area, and the children who receive preschool education can better adapt to the learning at the primary school stage.

It is worth noting that when the control variables increase the children's family socio-economic background, parents' education level and duration of left behind experience, there is no significant difference between the project KG and the County Center KG in the total score and five aspects of school preparation. The comparative analysis shows that the educational level of parents, especially the educational level of mothers, is the main reason for the above different conclusions

Differences in scores of admission preparation between the project KG and different types of KG (unit: standard deviation)

2. Kindergarten learning environment quality

After controlling for class size, the project KG scored higher than the private KG in terms of the total score of learning environment quality, space and facilities, and curriculum. In the field of curriculum, the score of project KG is even higher than that of county and town KG.

3. Cost per student analysis

Compared with other types of kindergartens, the average training cost of students in the project kindergarten is the lowest.

Average annual student cost of sample kindergartens in Funing County (unit: 10,000 yuan)

Preliminary suggestions on further developing village level preschool education

Ø Encourage social forces to participate in the development of village kindergartens

Ø Improve the qualification and conditions for the appointment of teachers in the project KG

Ø Pay attention to the development of children's non cognitive ability