English>News Center>lifestyle
         
 

First kindergarten opens for China's handicapped children
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2004-01-12 17:29

The first kindergarten for handicapped children and orphans in China has opened in the northern municipality of Tianjin to provide them equal access to preschool education.

The kindergarten, in Jinghai county on the city's outskirts, uses internationally accepted teaching methods and is equipped with special toys and gym facilities to boost the intellectual and physical development of the handicapped children.

Even its desks and chairs are specially designed to make it much easier and more comfortable to move around and do simple exercises for children suffering from physical disabilities caused by brain damage.

Most of its teachers have received professional training on how to address the specific demands of blind, mute, and physically and mentally disabled children.

They would use new textbooks tailored to the children's needs, says Feng Liwei, head of the Tianjin Children's Welfare Institute, home to hundreds of orphans and handicapped children.

The kindergarten had also hired nurses and doctors to treat the children, added Feng.

The kindergarten had enrolled more than 30 children aged between two and a half and 10 years, most of whom were abandoned shortly after birth.

China has approximately 1.4 million handicapped children under six years old, and the figure is rising by some 200,000 a year.

The country has set up 188 non-profit organizations to care for handicapped children and more than 1,600 schools to provide them with basic and vocational education. Chengdu, capital of the southwestern Sichuan province, has promised a nine-year compulsory education for all handicapped children free of charge in the next five years.



Anita Mui biopic begins shooting
Ziyi poses for Playboy
Madonna says daughter asked if she was gay
  Today's Top News     Top Life News
 

Australia, US, Japan praise China for Asia engagement

 

   
 

Banker: China doing its best on flexible yuan

 

   
 

Hopes high for oil pipeline deal

 

   
 

Possibilities of bird flu outbreaks reduced

 

   
 

Milosevic buried after emotional farewell

 

   
 

China considers trade contracts in India

 

   
  Pitt-Jolie wedding so far just rumors
   
  Hunan praises Russian quitted stunt flying
   
  1/17 of Beijing students applies for village jobs
   
  Stolen Van Gogh returned after 7 years
   
  Two women die after using abortion pill
   
  Which do you prefer? TV or sex?
   
 
  Go to Another Section  
 
 
  Story Tools  
   
  Feature  
  Could China's richest be the tax cheaters?  
Advertisement