Efforts of all needed to improve kindergartens

The State Council, China's Cabinet, has dispatched a team of inspectors across the country to check teachers' ethical standards and working styles. The move comes after recent media reports on "child abuse" at an RYB Education New World Kindergarten in Beijing. Although a kindergarten teacher was detained on suspicion of pricking children and two education officials have been put under investigation, the case still deserves to be viewed from both the moral and legal perspective.

Many have attributed the ill treatment of children mainly to the shortage of kindergarten teachers, both in terms of numbers and qualification. And they believe the problem can be solved if the number of government-run kindergartens is drastically increased. Which makes sense to some extent.

Theoretically speaking, if kindergartens offer decent salaries and good working conditions, it will attract not only more qualified teachers but also more investors, and thus help raise the quality of preschool education in China.