Babytree.com’s survey of more than 3,000 mothers reveals that parents who send their children to early education classes have high expectations: 81 percent hope their children learn to communicate with people in a confident and easy manner; 77 percent want their toddlers to develop good habits and the ability to look after themselves, while 68 percent believe their children will be “smarter” thanks to the early schooling. Mothers themselves hope to acquire expert knowledge on the early development of a child’s intelligence through institutes such as RYB.

Wang says there are many benefits to an early education. These include providing opportunities for communication among kids, developing social personalities, fostering emotional development, encouraging group participation, and heightening language skills, reading ability and basic knowledge of mathematics and other vital subjects. Another advantage is institutes’ offering parents an example of a scientific way to raise children on an individual level. Tiger-mom style education may bring up prodigies in rare cases, but for all kids, not just the geniuses, not imposing ideas and allowing children to find their own strengths is a much better model.

The tiger-mom idea dies hard, however. Much effort is spent by institutes such as RYB to educate and train parents and child minders. RYM now runs more than 600 parent-child “gardens” across the country, their purpose to educate both children and parents in a common setting.

One fundamental problem with early childhood education a few years back was that it rarely connected with further schooling. Children would learn one thing at three years old, only to relearn it a year or two later. Wang says RYB has tackled the problem by integrating kindergartens, for three to six-year-olds, with zero-to-three-year-old centers. This has been beneficial for the quality of kindergarten education as a whole: as private players have entered the market, competition has increased.

Private kindergartens charge more, but they justify the added cost with more personalized class arrangements, favorable pupil-teacher ratios, broader after-school care services and flexibility of admissions.

Besides offering regular subjects, private kindergartens, unlike public ones, also provide kids with elective interest classes such as music, dancing and English.

Within the private system itself there are many differences in the quality of instruction and services. Wang says it is important that educators are up to date on the latest international research into early childhood education, and that they incorporate research findings into their teaching techniques. “We always pay attention to research. We even do a fair bit ourselves, rather than just copy concepts and methods from abroad,” she says.

RYB hires a research staff of 40 to investigate and innovate tried-and-true teaching techniques. This makes the institute a leader in educational innovation nationwide. In 2011, for instance, it came out with the market-leading Zhudou educational box set. It contains DVDs, CDs, a painting book, a cognitive reading book, other learning materials and educational toys. For Wang, products such as the box set, and indeed early childhood education as a whole, are a necessity, not a luxury.

Government Participation

RYB has also teamed up with local governments to improve the quality of teacher instruction and the skills of child minders. One such local government is that of Tianjin, a coastal municipality two hours’ drive from Beijing.

The Tianjin Children Early Education Center was jointly established by the Tianjin Health and Family Planning Commission and the city’s Teachers’ Association. Its grounds were opened in June 2011 and cover an area of more than 1,000 square meters. The government chose RYB Education to carry out the administration and management of the center. For the first half year of operations, the center bought, at the government’s expense, the services of RYB’s instructors and provided free instruction and related services to families in the city. By the end of 2012, the center had provided instruction to more than 10,000 infants through parent-child activities, community-based parent-child classes and other programs.