BEIJING, Dec. 26 -- Efforts should be made to improve fairness in preschool education, says a commentary in Beijing News. An excerpt follows:

    In the ongoing Guangzhou Children's Education Expo, Zhu Jiaxiong, vice-chairman of the China National Society of Early Childhood Education, showed two photographs when talking about fairness in preschool education. One of the photos shows a well-decorated kindergarten that cost 200 million yuan (US$25.3 million), while the other features a rural child playing in a muddy field.

    Professor Zhu said there are insufficient fair-priced kindergartens in the country. The vast rural areas are especially facing shortages of preschool educational institutions.

    The key factors that decide educational quality are good teachers and a fine teaching mode, rather than big buildings. Thus the extravagant construction of many kindergartens are used to justify high fees. Some kindergartens now charge even more than universities.

    The high cost of preschool education has led to social inequality. In Beijing, it costs about 800 yuan (US$101) a month to send a child to a publicly run kindergarten. But the average disposable income of local residents was only 1,471 yuan (US$186) a month.

    Of course there are also some kindergartens affiliated to government departments that charge less. It is reported that Guangdong Province allocated 36 million yuan (US$4.56 million) of public money to five kindergartens affiliated to the provincial government. But these kindergartens are not available to everybody.

    The high cost of privatized kindergartens and the high threshold of government-run ones are all harming fairness in preschool education. Statistics show that there are about 20 million migrant children and 20 million children staying in rural areas whose parents are working in cities. A big proportion of these are preschool children who are not receiving proper education.

    Educational equality is the starting point of social fairness and harmonious society.