Preschool education, as an important foundation stage and starting point of the national education system, bears the responsibility of realizing the “starting point equity” of education. Although China has provided continuous policy support to the backward areas, the problem of regional inequality of opportunity in preschool education still exists and is increasingly becoming a key issue of social and academic concern in the context of solidly promoting common prosperity.
Taking China's low-income areas as an example, this paper analyzes the inequality of opportunity in China's regional preschool education based on the Human Opportunity Index (HOI). First, the problem of regional inequality of opportunity in preschool education in China is serious, as reflected in the fact that the supply of preschool education resources in low-income areas is still relatively insufficient, and there are obvious gaps in the distribution of opportunities among children from different environmental backgrounds. Second, the environmental factor that contributes most to intra-regional inequality of opportunity is the education level of the parents, followed by household registration and ethnicity. Low-income areas are at a disadvantage in terms of coverage of the opportunities for the overall and disadvantaged groups as well as in terms of the population distribution are at a disadvantage, and all three together contribute to the disparities between regions. Third, inequality of opportunity also exists in the quality of preschool education, which has not yet had the effect of improving children's human capital in low-income areas.
The possible contributions of this paper are as follows. First, focusing on the inequality of educational opportunities caused by regional disparities, this paper assesses the inequality of opportunities in preschool education in low-income areas based on the HOI methodology and discusses the sources of intra- and inter-regional inequality of opportunities. Second, this paper further constructs a linear regression model on this basis to analyze the inequality of opportunities in the quality of preschool education, comprehensively portraying the current situation of preschool education opportunities in low-income areas.
This study reveals that the problem of regional inequality in preschool education in China cannot be ignored, confirms the necessity of various intervention policies and special funds to continue to tilt towards low-income areas, helps clarify the weakness of the current distribution of preschool education opportunities, and points out the focus of future educational assistance.