Adviser hopes to boost kindergarten teachers’ pay

Ichecked in at a budget hotel along the North Fifth Ring Road in Beijing when China’s top political advisory body started its annual session on Saturday.

The hotel is a 20-minute walk from the Beijing Conference Center, where many members of the 13th National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference are gathering for group discussions on major issues through March 15.

Booking the hotel saved me the trouble of spending three hours a day in a taxi between home and the conference center. It also means I made a choice to leave my 11-monthold baby to a nanny during the days and nights while I am covering the meeting.

In first-tier cities like Beijing, the typical monthly salary for a nanny who lives with their employer is about 6,000 yuan ($950), tax free. For a higher-skilled nanny with the experience of taking care of at least two babies below the age of 6 months, the salary is at least 8,000 yuan.

I am grateful to my nanny despite her salary taking a large part of mine. Without her, I’d have to quit my job. As China has eased family planning restrictions to allow two children for all couples, a noticeably growing number of working mothers are hiring nannies or sending their children to daycare centers or kindergartens.

The issue of preschool education raised the concern of Liu Yan, a professor of the faculty of education at Beijing Normal University and a CPPCC National Committee member.

In an interview with me after group discussions on Sunday, Liu said a procedure should be established to negotiate and share the cost of baby care for children ages 1 to 3 among different parties, including the government, families and enterprises.

In a proposal submitted to the CPPCC National Committee this year, she also called for pay raises for kindergarten teachers.

Despite their professional training, most of kindergarten teachers are paid far less than nannies. The average salary of a teacher at private kindergarten is between 1,500 and 3,000 yuan per month.

The teachers at public kindergartens who are hired through the procedures for quota restricted staffing at public institutions have higher salaries — roughly the same as the average salary of primary and secondary school teachers in the same city, county or town. But due to staffing quota restrictions, those higher-paid teachers only account for about 20 percent of all public kindergarten teachers, Liu said.

“The key to increase people’s satisfaction with preschool education is to raise teachers’ salaries industrywide,” she said.

Hopefully, her proposals will benefit preschool teachers — and, eventually, our children.