--Congratulations on the successful opening of the closing meeting on the Humana People to People(HPP) project of “Changing pre-primary classes to preschools”and “One village, One preschool” in Ning'er County

"The HPP project workers in Ning'er County are like Santa Claus. Every time they go to the preschool, they will bring gifts or surprises to the children. They are more like Doraemon's treasure bag. They will try their best to provide whatever we want for us...”

Xiong Wei, a teacher of Duanjin Kindergarten in Puyi Township of Ning'er County, shared with everyone the changes brought by the project.

Since August 2018, the HPP's “Changing pre-primary classes to preschools”and “One village, One preschool”project has covered 35 preschools in 35 villages of 9 townships, benefiting 1997 children and 54 teachers in Ning'er County.

 On the afternoon of January 8, 2021， the closing meeting of the project was held in the Youth Activity Center of Ning'er County. Among them, Fan Rulai, Deputy County Magistrate of Ning'er County, Zhang Shuli, Deputy Director of Ning’er Education and Sports Bureau, the directors of the Basic Education Section, relevant leaders of the overseas non-governmental organization office of the County Public Security Bureau, representatives of teachers from the County Teacher Development Center and the preschool project, Mr. Michael Hermann, Chief Representative of HPP, and the whole project team attended the meeting.

Under the chairmanship of Zhang Shuli, Project Leader Luo Ruhong reviewed the background and specific activities of the project, summed up the experience and influence of the project, shared the prospect of the project, and finally played the project video.

HPP cooperated with the Ning’er Education and Sports Bureau to implement the pilot project of “Changing pre-primary classes to preschools”and “One village, One preschool” in Ning'er County, with a total investment of 1.8 million Yuan, mainly used for teacher subsidies and incentives, teacher training and local study tours, class equipments and toys, class daily operation, class supervision and management, etc. Since the implementation of the project, we have witnessed the growth of teachers and the changes in preschools, which is also the original intention of the project in Ning'er County. Although the project is over, we hope that preschools can continue to maintain and develop. We hope that each preschool will get better and better, and more people will pay attention to rural preschool education.

Next, two teachers from Duanjin Kindergarten in Puyi Township and Jianhe Village Kindergarten in Meizi Town on behalf of all project teachers expressed their gratitude for the support and help given by the project in turn, and shared their growth and harvest, changes in preschools and children's lives, support from parents and their changed awareness in detail.

At the same time, Hu Qifa, the principal of Dehua Central School, on behalf of the central schools of the preschools covered by the project, shared the development and changes of those preschools and experience after project participation.

During the project, Ning'er County Kindergarten provided great support and help to the project, including the provision of office space, teacher training places and training support, and participation in preschool supervision with project personnel. They witnessed the whole process of the project implementation and the results achieved today. At the meeting, Li Jiayan, Deputy Director of Ning'er Kindergarten, also won warm applause for her wonderful sharing.

The purpose of the project is to cooperate with the Education and Sports Bureau to help promote the implementation of the policy of “Changing pre-primary classes to preschools”and “One village, One preschool”. The project provided financial support for improving hardware equipment of the classroom, organizes teachers to carry out systematic training, and regularly supervises and guides the preschools, so as to improve the quality of local preschool education.

At the exchange meeting, after introducing the general situation of the organization, Michael Hermann emphasized that early development is of great significance to the life skills development for a lifetime. The current preschool education is continuousle evolving and improving in China. At the same time, there are also some difficulties, especially in rural areas. After the in-depth analysis of the bottlenecks in preschool education, Michael pointed out: "the preschool education is the basis of lifelong learning, and it is our common responsibility to pay attention to children in mountainous areas."

Fan Rulai, deputy head of the people's Government of Ning'er County, said that the project promoted the implementation of the policy of “Changing pre-primary classes to preschools”and “One village, One preschool”, which has a positive impact on preschool education in the whole county and expressed heartfelt thanks for this.

With the two-and-a-half year project implementation, the overall education and teaching level of rural preschool teachers (in Ning 'er County) has improved rapidly, the school environment has been well enhanced, the difficulties of parents sending their children to school has been overcome, the education cost has been greatly reduced, and the overall level of preschool education in Ning 'er County has been improved. At the same time, Fan Rulai, the deputy county magistrate, hoped that education departments, schools and teachers insist to work tirelessly for the preschool education in Ning 'er County, strive to improve the level of rural preschool management, and provide high-quality education services for more rural children.

Love gathers strength, hope achieves the future. In the future, we will be committed to the continuous improvement and development of preschool education, especially rural preschool education. By providing high-quality preschool education services, we will help children to grow up healthily and happily...... The meeting ended with a summary of Zhang Shuli, Deputy Director. The project of “changing idle classes to preschools and one village, one preschool” “Changing pre-primary classes to preschools”and “One village, One preschool” in Ning'er was completed successfully.

Finally, HPP would like to express our heartfelt thanks to the government of Ning 'er County, Education and Sports Bureau, County Central Kindergarten, other schools and teachers for their support and help to the project. We wish the preschools covered by the project and all other preschools in Ning 'er  County would be better and better!

Project Brief：

“One Village, One Preschool and Pre-primary Class turns into Preschool” project is a preschool education pilot project of Yunnan Provincial Education Department. In hoping to transform the existing pre-primary school class to independent preschool, and establish preschool in large administrative villages, the project strive to gradually achieve the education layout of “One County, One Demonstration Kindergarten; One Township, One Public Kindergarten; One Village, One Preschool” in the province. Ning'er County is one of the pilot counties. After preliminary communications and field visits, The Federation for Associations Connected to the International Humana People to People Movement (Switzerland) Yunnan Representative Office worked together with the Ning'er County Education Bureau, and assisted the Education Bureau in training those teachers hired locally, mainly by providing knowledge of preschool education, supervisions on curriculum management and teaching techniques , in order to eventually improve the quality of teaching. 

The project is sponsored by Beijing Tianheng Anke Group Co. Ltd and HPP China.

The project is a cooperation between The Federation for Associations Connected to the International Humana People to People Movement (Switzerland) Yunnan Representative Office and Ning’er County Education Bureau.

This article only represents the views of the author's, not that of the sponsor's.