HPP Butuo Preschool of the Future project includes 15 preschools funded by Shanghai Charity Foundation/Rural Children Early Development Foundation. The preschools are spread over 4 administrative villages of Tuojue Town. In addition, there are 3 preschools funded by Shanghai United Foundation and 3 preschools funded by FAIHPP, which are distributed in 2 administrative villages of Tuojue Town.

The National goal for the enrollment to preschools is 75% by 2020. Butuo County of Liangshan Prefecture tries to reach 80% of provincial level. Currently there are 14,500 rural children and 3500 children are enrolled into the preschools in Liangshan. So the society and government need to make more efforts to open preschools. The goal is one preschool in one village. Butuo Bureau of Education came and visit HPP preschool model and thought about how specifically open preschools in natural villages.

On September 9, Qumu Muyi, Director of Butuo Bureau of Education and Lu Shilin, Mayor of Butuo County visited the preschools, communicated with project staff and teachers about their routine work and detailed information of the preschools, including number of children in each school, proportion of teachers and teaching contents. Teachers explained routine e work of the preschools to Mr. Lu: organize children to brush teeth and wash face, and help them to form good hygienic habit. Bilingual education was provided to improve children’s language capacity. Mr. Lu agreed that these activities are critical for children’s early development.

On September 23-24, PMO accompanied Chen Guangxia, Deputy Director of Butuo Bureau of Education, Rong Jinglong, Planning Section Section Director of Butuo Bureau of Education, and Shen Xuehua, Xu Gang, staff of Butuo Bureau of Education to visit preschools. They visited the preschools to study the HPPC preschool model as basis for the “One village, One preschool” policy. They checked each village preschool from hardware to software and from model to its implementation. They sought to know about equipment and facilities of the preschools, and budget distribution such as teachers’ salaries, nutritious breakfast to children, procurement of daily supplies, procurement of accident insurance to children, training costs and children’s health check etc. They tried to know everything about the preschools in depth and comprehensively to prepare for the implementation of the new government policy.

It is critical to provide preschool education and solve the problems of difficult enrollment into preschools in rural mountainous areas. In order to achieve this, HPPC will continue to work hard to mobilize more social organizations and enterprises to support and pay attention to rural children and make sure that each village has a preschool with its name.

 Butuo County Mayor visiting Shiju Preschool 
 
 
Bureau of Education and PMO accompanying Provincial Bureau of Finance to visit preschools.

 Providing nutritious lunch to children