Recently
Several short-video platform bloggers have released statements saying that
Since June this year
In some areas, kindergartens will offer free education.
And attached is a so-called document.
List of areas offering free services for kindergartens
Attracted the attention of a large number of netizens.
On social media platforms
There are also many netizens posting comments to discuss

However, according to media investigation, this list is actually derived from the “Notice of the Ministry of Education on Announcing the List of Counties (Cities, Districts) with Universal and Inclusive Preschool Education in 2024” released on January 24th.
After interviewing several experts in the education field, the reporter learned that the list in question refers to areas where preschool education is universal and inclusive. It is not the same as free preschool education. Some bloggers’ claim that “preschool education will be free starting from this year” is a misinterpretation.

Universal inclusion is not the same as “free”
The relevant staff of the Shenzhen Municipal Education Bureau said that the situation of “free” is not true. In recent years, the Ministry of Education has announced a number of universal and inclusive areas for preschool education every year, and universal inclusion is not the same as “free”.
A senior preschool educator in Futian District also said that the so-called “free” is just misinformation, and the popularization and inclusion are only the results of a recent review, which only shows that preschool education has done a good job in basic security, not that it is free in all aspects.
Song Ke, the director of a kindergarten in Shenzhen, also held a similar opinion. “Universal inclusion is a requirement for the quality of preschool education, and it is the supervision and acceptance of local government preschool education work at the national, provincial and municipal levels, and has nothing to do with whether kindergartens are free.” She believes that the emergence of this statement cannot be ruled out as a misunderstanding caused by the masses’ expectations for preschool compulsory education.
Zang Dunjian, director of the Southern Department of the 21st Century Education Research Institute, believes that preschool education and high school are different from compulsory education, compulsory education is a basic public service, and preschool education and high school are inclusive public services, and the concept is not the same, after all, high school and kindergarten are not mandatory for everyone.
Although it is a “misreading”
It also reflects the public’s expectation and voice for free preschool education
Regarding the misreading of “kindergarten is free” by the majority of parents, a staff member of the preschool department of the Luohu District Education Bureau said that this reflects the expectations and voices of the masses for free preschool education. In the “Preschool Education Law of the People’s Republic of China” promulgated in 2024, although there is a guiding signal that “places with conditions will gradually promote the implementation of free preschool education and reduce the cost of family care education”, the premise and method of realization cannot be ignored.
First of all, the “conditions” in “conditional areas” cover the level of local economic development, financial status, preschool education resources, etc.;
The second is “gradual implementation”, which is not a one-step implementation, and this “gradual” can be divided into age groups or regions;
The ultimate goal is to “reduce the cost of family care education”. At this stage, although most areas of the country have not implemented free preschool education, local financial support for public kindergartens and inclusive private kindergartens is gradually increasing.
He also mentioned that “universal inclusion means ‘having a garden’ and ‘affordability’, which is different from the concept of free, and there is still a way to go from universal inclusion to free.”“
There are three core indicators of “universal and inclusive preschool education”: first, the three-year gross enrollment rate of preschool education, which to a certain extent reflects the availability of preschool education resources in a certain area; the second is the proportion of children in public kindergartens, which is commonly referred to as “50”; The third is the proportion of children in inclusive kindergartens, which is commonly referred to as “80”.
The core goal of the policy is to achieve “inclusive and quality” preschool education, which not only requires expanding the supply of resources, but also requires improving the quality of education, ensuring the healthy growth of young children, and promoting a more balanced and high-quality development of regional preschool education.
How to guide the public to better understand policy information and avoid “misreading”? Some scholars also suggested that it is necessary to build a “decoding-recoding” mechanism for policy communication, and the education department should establish a “white list” mechanism for policy interpretation, cooperate with authoritative media to visualize policy interpretation, and improve the monitoring and early warning system for preschool education costs, dynamically release the per capita education cost and family sharing ratio in each region, and dispel public anxiety through data transparency.