Common Prosperity
Recently, “common prosperity” or “共同富裕” has become ubiquitous in most discussions in China - financial markets, macroeconomy, rural revitalization… you name it, “common prosperity” is part of that conversation. And though the shift back to “common prosperity” is a pragmatic step to address deficiencies created by the widening wealth and development gaps, China cannot avoid the overwhelming myriad of challenges that stand between the country and sustainable success. More importantly is that we - the government, businesses, social organizations, you and I - must focus and tackled one problem at a time.
An area that World Vision China is looking to expand our work in is early childhood development in rural communities. Although we believe family are the first and prime educators for children, it is a growing challenge when both parent or caregivers have to work, especially in rural areas. Some commentators think that the recently revised third child policy is likely to lead to higher birth rates in rural areas as compared to first- and second-tier cities, thereby driving greater need for quality early childhood education to help set the foundation for a child’s lifelong learning and development. While we have seen robust growth in kindergartens in the urban areas, village-level kindergartens remain underdeveloped due to constraints in resources.
One of the glaring shortfalls observed by World Vision is the lack of adequate reading material for children. Most of the books, where available, are related to class curriculum. Extracurricular reading material are few and far between. According to a study by the China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation and the China Philanthropy Research Institute of Beijing Normal University, up to 74% of the children surveyed read less than ten extracurricular books a year, and more than 36% of them read less than three books a year. Among the households surveyed, 71% have less than ten books at home and close to 20% do not even owe an extracurricular book. Libraries and book stores are scarce. Schools are thus the main place for children to access age-appropriate reading material.
Another critical component often overlook in the development of children is play. Leading early childhood educator Professor Chen Qinhe 陈鹤琴 said, “play is a child’s psychological characteristic; play is a child’s work; play is a child’s life 游戏是儿童心理特征，游戏是儿童的工作，游戏是儿童的生命”. Using games to teach in kindergarten is not just a way to keep children interested and engaged, the experience they take away will contribute to all well-being aspects of life - interpersonal communications, social interactions, the ability to have healthy relationships with family and peers, decision making that enables self-protection and many more.
World Vision is working to increase provision of physical resources (books, toys, playground facilities) in kindergartens. Besides that, we also work to enhance the capacity of teachers and child caregivers to guide and develop reading habits and introduce learning through play and arts for young children.
October marks the start of a new financial year for World Vision. It is a time when we recommit ourselves to serve the most vulnerable children, and look forward to new collaborations over the next 12 months. We have our gears in motion and we hope you will join us in this important work!
If you would like to know more about our Early Childhood Education work in China, please contact me or visit our website at www.wvchina.org/education-and-life-skills.
Our vision for every child, life in all its fullness;
Our prayer for every heart, the will to make it so.
Sharing hope & joy for all children,