A Brief Analysis of the Development Dilemma of Preschool Education in Zhaoqing City, Guangdong Province

The “2024 National Statistical Bulletin on the Development of Education” released by the Ministry of Education reveals a notable trend: the number of kindergartens nationwide is decreasing. As a hub city connecting the Pearl River Delta with southwest China, Zhaoqing still has preschool education as a weak link among various types of education. Especially in the context of ongoing changes in the educational landscape where the number of kindergartens nationwide has decreased year-on-year, the development of preschool education has become a crucial issue. Taking Duanzhou District as an example, this paper explores the dilemmas faced by preschool education in urban Zhaoqing from the perspectives of teachers, students, environmental supporting facilities, and educational quality, based on survey data from 129 teacher questionnaires and 108 parent questionnaires in urban areas of Zhaoqing. The study finds that the core dilemmas include unbalanced resource allocation dominated by public kindergartens, the fault in the professional title structure of teachers, and value conflicts between inclusiveness and high quality. Furthermore, regional competition in the process of urbanization and shortcomings in service quality have further intensified the development tensions. The study suggests constructing solutions from three dimensions: institutional innovation, professional empowerment, and quality supervision, so as to provide practical references for the balanced development of preschool education in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area urban agglomeration.