本帖最后由 znh 于 2010-3-3 00:46 编辑
CSM：中国幼儿园花销超过顶尖大学
原文：CSM: In China, kindergarten costs more than college
译文：基督教科学箴言报：中国幼儿园花销超过顶尖大学
转自译者网：
http://yyyyiiii.blogspot.com/2010/03/csm.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+yizhe+%28%E8%AF%91%E8%80%85%29&utm_content=Google+Reader
作者： Peter Ford
发表时间：2010年2月23日 周二
在北京，送孩子进幼儿园的花销每月高达600美元。与此相较，中国顶尖大学的每月花销为102美元。
 图片：By Peter Ford 专栏作家
发表时间：2010年2月23日 at 2:59 pm EST
北京——目前在北京，父母送孩子上幼儿园的花销已超过了送他或她上大学的费用。随着外来人口涌进首都寻找工作，而家长们尽力让自己的后代不输在起跑线上，稀缺的学前教育资源因此不断刷新收费记录。
李佳（音）是一家内衣公司的销售经理，她一边从沙发下翻找出2岁儿子的玩具汽车一边叹息道：“北京的学龄前小孩是实在太多，幼儿园实在是太少。”
“私立幼儿园太贵了，而要进公立幼儿园真的难于上青天。”她的丈夫，邢军同意她的说法，“当我儿子出生的时候我可没料到。”
对家长和老师而言，在北京找到一所月收费在1000人民币（约150美元）以下的名牌幼儿园几乎是不可能的。而1000人民币意味着北京人平均月收入的四分之一。一些幼儿园的开价5倍于此，即使是收入颇丰的年轻父母们，在沉重的房贷压力之上还要负担幼儿园的费用，手头会也非常紧张。
与之相较，得益于政府的巨额补贴，中国最好的大学——北京大学的学费和住宿费每月仅需700人民币（102美元）。
在众所周知的另一个重视少儿教育的国度——日本，两年的幼儿园教育平均花费50万日元（即每年2791美元，或每月232美元）。但是，日本精英教育的收费超出 这个数目的十倍。
更何况日本人的平均工资是中国人平均工资的十倍以上。
北京负责教育的部门正尽力满足对幼儿园日益增长的需求，但收效不甚明显。据北京市教育局称，他们已经把班级规模从35个孩子扩充至40个，并且在1万2千个地方增加了新教室。 教育局官员表示他们不久就会在另1万2千处增加新教室。
但是据北京教育科学研究院（Beijing Academy of Educational Science）最近的一份报告指出，即便如此，仍然会有25万学前儿童无处可去。这个数目约占北京学前儿童总数的一半以上。
现在对幼儿园特别大的需求压力来自2007年——特别吉祥的农历金猪年——的婴儿潮，现在他们都到了上幼儿园的年龄。根据官方统计数据，2007年北京的出生率与2006年相比跳跃式上升了25%，为过去20年中最高。
因为大多数北京家庭里的父母亲都要上班，上述情况就意味着相对贫穷一些的北京人被迫倒退至照料孩子的传统方式——依赖祖辈。但是对属于北京日益增加的中产阶级的新父母们而言，祖母的水平不足以教育后代。他们希望自己的小宝贝——中国计划生育政策下诞生的独生子女——从牙牙学语开始就先人一步。
“我们总是在互相比较中。”刘琦（音），一位32岁的蓝光DVD工厂的技术经理说。他从去年6月开始寻找一所可以供他2岁的儿子在明年9月入学的幼儿园。
“要是别的家长都把小孩送到幼儿园，你没有送，那你的小孩就一个玩伴都没有了。”他担心地说，“没有家长会让自己的小孩输在起跑线上，要是有一家把小孩送进幼儿园，那家家都会这么做。”
“如果他们不和别的小孩子在一起，他们就学不会恰当的沟通方法”李女士（音）补充说，“我希望我们的儿子在幼儿园中学会社交技巧。”
郝建秋【1】是东华门幼儿园【2】的园长。东华门幼儿园靠近紫禁城，是北京评价最高的幼儿园之一。她说：“现在的家长肯定会把注意力放在学前教育上，孩子肩负着整个家庭的希望，如果孩子的教育失败了，那这个家庭就失败了。”
“好消息是家长在学前教育上的投资更多了”郝园长补充道，“坏消息是这给了孩子很大的压力。”
对一个在北京上幼儿园的3岁小孩而言，学习英语是很平常的情况。他们在课后学习音乐、跆拳道或象棋也很常见，这些课程又要额外的花费。
东华门幼儿园作为一家公立幼儿园，其中任教的老师由国家发放工资。该幼儿园 每月收取基本费用1000人民币。但是这里仅能够从报名就读9月份开始的新学期的800个孩子们中招收110个，郝院长说。
辛先生（音）为他的孩子辛语成（音）申请了东华门幼儿园，但他表示已经被告知除非他或妻子陪孩子出席每周的预备课和总结评估课，否则他的孩子不会被幼儿园接收。而他和妻子均无暇请假陪孩子参加这些课程。
另外两家辛先生负担得起的本学区内的公立幼儿园也告知他不大可能有机会把孩子送进他们那里。（辛先生相信这是他没有“关系”的缘故。）
公立幼儿园名额的明显缺乏导致了对私营幼儿园的巨大需求。私立幼儿园提供参差不齐的服务，收取他们想要的费用。很多私立幼儿园仅会照看孩子而已，“但如果是那样的话，我想还不如让我的母亲来照看的好”，辛先生说。
他已经把希望寄托在一家优先招收穆斯林孩子的市营幼儿园上，因为辛先生属于信仰伊斯兰教的回族，但那家幼儿园也是求大于供。“我的一个亲戚每个月付给幼儿园4500块（660美元），我工作上的一个同事每个月付3700块”辛先生说。如果这家穆斯林幼儿园也上不了，他就会动用自己的储蓄。
“我们不想花费这么多，但如果别无选择的话我们就不得不付”他耸耸肩说，“我们不想辛语成在刚上小学的时候就落后别人一截。”
In China, kindergarten costs more than college
In Beijing, sending a child to kindergarten costs as much as $660 a month, compared with $102 a month for the country's top college.
Temp Headline Image
By Peter Ford Staff writer
posted February 23, 2010 at 2:59 pm EST
Beijing —
It costs more to send your child to kindergarten in Beijing today than it does to put him or her through college. As outsiders pour into the capital looking for work, and parents try to give their offspring an ever-earlier competitive advantage, scarce preschool places are commanding record fees.
"There are just too many kids and too few kindergartens," sighs Li Jia, sales manager at a lingerie company, as she rescues her 2-year-old son's toy car from beneath the sofa.
"The private ones are too expensive, and it's really hard to get into a public one," agrees her husband, Xing Jun. "I did not expect this when my son was born."
It is almost impossible, according to parents and teachers, to find a reputable kindergarten in Beijing that charges less than 1,000 renminbi ($150) a month, which is a quarter of an average salary in the capital. Some charge five times that, putting intense strain on the budgets of even better-off young parents already burdened by heavy mortgages.
By comparison, tuition and accommodation at Peking University, the country's best, costs only about 700 renminbi ($102) a month, thanks to heavy government subsidies.
And in Japan, another nation famously focused on a child's education, two years of kindergarten on average costs 500,000 yen ($2,791 per year or $232 per month). But the price tag at elite schools can rise to 10 times that amount.
Still, the average Japanese worker makes about 10 times more than the average Chinese worker.
The Beijing education authorities are struggling to meet the rising demand, without much success. They have increased class sizes this year to 40 children, up from 35, and added classrooms for another 12,000 places, according to the Education Department of the Beijing city government. There are plans to add a further 12,000 in the near future, officials say.
But even that will leave a quarter of a million kindergarten-age children in Beijing – more than half the total – without places, according to a recent report by the Beijing Academy of Educational Science.
The pressure on kindergartens is particularly heavy at the moment because children born in 2007 – an especially auspicious year in the Chinese calendar – are coming up to preschool age. Beijing's birthrate spiked in 2007, according to official statistics, jumping 25 percent from the year before to the highest total for two decades.
All this means that poorer Beijingers are forced to fall back on the traditional child-care solution in China – relying on the grandparents – since in most Chinese families both parents work. But Grandma is not good enough for many new parents in Beijing's burgeoning middle class. They want their little darlings – all single children under China's one-child policy – to get ahead from the word go.
"We are always comparing," says Lu Qi, a 32-year-old technical manager at a BluRay DVD manufacturer who began last June to look for a kindergarten that would take his 2-year- old boy next September.
"If other parents are sending their children to preschool and you don't, your child won't have any playmates," he worries. "Parents don't want their kids to lose right from the starting line: If just one family sends his kid to kindergarten, everybody will."
"If they don't mix, they won't learn to communicate properly," adds Ms. Li. "We want our boy to learn social skills at kindergarten."
Hao Jianqiu, headmistress of Donghuamen kindergarten near the Forbidden City, one of the most highly regarded in Beijing, says, "Parents are definitely paying more attention nowadays to preschool. Their children carry the whole family's hopes on their shoulders; if their education is a failure, the family fails."
"The good thing is that parents spend more today on preschool" Ms. Hao adds. "The bad thing is that it puts huge pressure on the children."
It is common for 3-year-olds in Beijing kindergartens to learn English, and not unusual for them to take after-school classes in music, tae kwon do, or chess, which cost extra.
As a public school, whose teachers' salaries are paid by the state, Donghuamen charges a government-approved 1,000 renminbi a month for basic tuition. But the kindergarten will be able to take only 110 of the 800 children who have applied for places next September, Hao says.
Mr. Xing put his boy, Xing Yuchen, down for Donghuamen, but he says he was given to understand that the toddler would stand a chance of being accepted only if he attended weekly preparation and evaluation classes with one of his parents. Neither his mother nor father could afford to take time off work to do that.
Two other reasonably affordable public schools in the district told Xing he did not stand a chance of getting his son in (because, he believes, he lacks the right connections).
The dramatic shortage of places in public schools has created a huge demand for privately run kindergartens, which can charge what they like for highly variable services. Many of them simply offer to look after the children, "but if that's all I wanted I'd let my mother do it," says Xing.
He has pinned his hopes on a city-run kindergarten that gives priority to Muslim children – Xing belongs to the Hui Muslim minority – but that school, too, is oversub-scribed. "One of my relatives is pay-ing 4,500 renminbi ($660) a month for kindergarten, and a colleague at work is paying 3,700 ($544)," Xing says. If the Muslim kindergarten option doesn't work out, he will have to dig into his savings.
"We don't want to spend that much, but if we have no choice, we will have to," he says, shrugging. "We don't want Xing Yuchen to be behind when he goes to elementary school." |
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