cation services for babies and toddlers as education normally starts at
the nursery level, Liu Peng said.
At the annual economic meeting at the end of 2014, the Central
Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) decided not to
“let [poor] children lose at the very starting point of life.” Pre-school
children’s education for poor families has been included in all road
maps on poverty alleviation by the central government and the CPC
central committee since 2016. Wang thinks this is a big step forward
compared with the previous policies focusing on kids already in com-
pulsory education.
However, a policy of supporting zero to three-year-old children has
yet to be laid out in specific terms, including which agency is respon-
sible and what public resources can be invested, he added. REAP has
long been advocating to decentralise university education but central-
ising the early education of babies and toddlers. REAP estimated thatUS$3 billion would be needed to build 300,000 village parenting
centres around China, and US$4 billion to operate them per year.
The total of US$7 billion is only 0.1 percent of China’s total public
spending on education in 2016. Rozelle has repeatedly stressed China
has no problem affording this.
Best practices are needed before this is realised. Wang said that they
have been seeking the best practice for such interventions as a crucial
part of empirical studies to facilitate national policy making. CDRF,
REAP and Save the Children have all been quite cautious about con-
cluding what the best practice is, before their final assessment is con-
ducted.
For millions of babies born in poor rural areas each year in China,
the brief window of early intervention is passing day by day. For their
parents and the country, letting this window close now is a cost that
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