Reports of child abuse scandals, and cases of competitive parenting gone overboard, have led to public scrutiny on Chinese early childhood education in the past year. In November, a toddler from Shanghai was reported to be losing hair due to the stress of taking five extracurricular classes—English, math, piano, drawing, and emcee—at the age of 2-and-a-half, and a 2010 study found that Zhejiang children as young as 6 showed symptoms of anxiety due to school.

As stakes for entering higher education and the job market get higher, early childhood education in China becomes more and more rigorous, to the detriment of qualities like creativity, imagination, teamwork, communication, self-confidence, and stimulating children’s moral, intellectual, and artistic potential. Today’s education experts, though, believe that core personal development should begins as early as kindergarten and elementary school.

In this episode, The World of Chinese invites three such experts to discuss the latest concepts in education and healthy childhood development: Qi Xu, director of the International Online Education Channel and president of the Guoguang Education Technology; Sun Mingyan, Curriculum Division Director for the Elementary School Affliated With the Capital Normal University; and Xu Mingfang, Director of the Yonghe Oxford Kindergarten.

TWOC TV EP. 12 – Part 1

TWOC TV EP. 12 – Part 2