CDRF holds the 8th International Symposium on Child Development in Beijing
On 16 December 2023, the China Development Research Foundation (CDRF) held
the 8th International Symposium on Child Development in Beijing, with the aim of
promoting international exchanges of research and practice in the field of child
development. Under the theme of "Promoting Child Development for Quality
Population Development", nearly 300 representatives from government departments,
universities, international organizations, social organizations, as well as
experts and scholars from the United States, Mexico, Brazil, Chile, South Korea,
South Africa and China attended the symposium.
High-quality child development is the foundation for the sustainable
development of the country and society, and is the key to promoting human
capital. At the first meeting of the 20th Central Commission for Financial and
Economic Affairs held in May this year, Xi Jinping pointed out that efforts must
be made to improve the overall population quality and advance Chinese
modernization with support from the high-quality development of the
population.
Fang Jin, Vice Chairman and Secretary General of CDRF, gave an opening
speech, pointing out that in recent years, the overall development of the
Chinese population and labor force have been greatly improved. The average years
of education of the population increased from 9.67 years in 2010 to 10.93 years
in 2022; the gross enrollment rate of higher education increased from 12.5% in
2000 to 50.6% in 2022; the average years of education of new workforce reached
14 years, which is a remarkably high level globally. However, there are still
shortcomings in the development of Chinese population, especially in the early
childhood stage, which are mainly reflected in two aspects. Firstly, there is
insufficient investment in early childhood education, particularly for children
aged 0-3. Secondly, there is a significant gap in the development levels of
urban and rural children. To achieve high-quality population development, it is
essential to increase investment and narrow the developmental gaps between urban
and rural areas.
China is a developing country with a large population and is carrying out the
largest basic education program in the world. In the keynote speech, Tian Zuyin,
Director of the Department of Basic Education of the Ministry of Education,
stated that the Chinese government has taken various measures over the years
around equity and quality. Typical measures include the following: adhering to
the principles of public welfare and inclusiveness, advancing accessibility,
increasing financial investment, providing supervision and regulation, enhancing
the quality of education and protection, and achieving a leap-forward
development in preschool education. Despite the remarkable achievements in
recent years, there are still prominent imbalances and inadequacies in preschool
education, particularly in aspects such as resource allocation, teaching force,
and management mechanisms. In the next steps, the Chinese Ministry of Education
will resolutely implement the requirements put forward by Xi Jinping to "promote
the universal, inclusive, safe, and high-quality development of preschool
education" and steadfastly promote the implementation of the "14th Five-Year
Plan" for the development and improvement of preschool education and the action
plan on improving basic education in the new era. Efforts will be made to
coordinate urban and rural development, ensure inclusiveness, enhance quality,
and implement the Preschool Education Law.
Helia Molina, former Minister of Health of Chile and Professor of Medical
Sciences at the University of Santiago, first congratulated the Chinese
government on its great achievements in promoting child development. She pointed
out that in the past few decades, China has made significant progress in child
development and made important contributions to the international community.
Currently, global child development is facing new challenges and problems.
Countries should pay more attention to early childhood stage and explore
intervention measures and policies.
Early childhood development promotes comprehensive improvements to population
quality and supports the human capital base for high-quality economic and social
development. Du Xixue, Inspector of the Population and Family Department of the
National Health Commission, said in his speech that childcare services is a
foundational system for full life cycle service management. Professional,
standardized and scientific childcare services are conducive to promoting the
healthy growth of children. Effectively implementing early childhood development
in underdeveloped areas is an important strategic measure to fundamentally block
the intergenerational transmission of poverty and narrow the gap between urban
and rural areas and among different regions. The National Health Commission has
always attached great importance to rural infant and child care services. The
selection of the first batch of “national infant care service demonstration
cities” will take the development of rural infant care services as one of the
selection criteria. In recent years, the National Health Commission has
supported institutions such as CDRF to carry out pilot projects in
underdeveloped rural areas such as Guizhou and Shaanxi to provide care services
for infants and young children. This symposium will help explore effective paths
to achieve high-quality child development, promote the healthy growth and
overall development of children to achieve high-quality population development
to support Chinese modernization.
In recent years, China has invested heavily in early childhood development
and made basic public health services for children more equitable and
accessible. Shen Haiping, deputy director of the Maternal and Child Health
Department of the National Health Commission, pointed out that children's health
has seen remarkable achievements. Relevant policies and systems are being
rounded out and the children's health service network is becoming increasingly
complete, balanced and inclusive. The nutritional status of children continues
to improve, and common infectious diseases have been effectively controlled. In
2022, the national infant mortality rate dropped to 4.9‰, and the mortality rate
of children under 5 years old decreased to 6.8‰, both falling to historical lows
and ranks among better performing upper-middle-income countries. In the new
development stage, China will place the child development in an important
position, integrate the promotion of child development into various policies,
ensure the comprehensive enhancement of children's growth, physiology and
psychology, and promote the continuous improvement of children's health
services. China will draw upon its experiences and contribute to building a
human health community and promoting the realization of global sustainable
development goals.
Amanda Bissex, Deputy Representative to UNICEF China, said there were 45
million underweight children and 37 million overweight children worldwide in
2022. Air pollution is also a serious health threat, with 600,000 air
pollution-related deaths among children under 5 years old each year. In
addition, more than 1 billion children worldwide experience violence every year,
and children with disabilities are at higher risk. In today's increasingly
interconnected world, if children don't get a good start in life, the world will
pay the price. Therefore, governments, private sectors, international
organizations, academia, and local communities must work together to promote
early childhood development.
Zhang Yanhong, the Secretary-General of the China Children and Teenagers'
Fund, said that the development environment for children's affairs in China is
continuously improving. The legal and policy system to safeguard children's
rights is increasingly complete. Revisions to the Law on the Protection of
Minors and the enactment of the Law on the Promotion of Family Education provide
legal safeguards for children's rights to survival, development, protection, and
participation. The new "Outline of the Development of Children’s Development in
China" has been promulgated and implemented, providing strong policy guarantees
to ensure that the development of children's affairs is coordinated, deployed,
and advanced in tandem with economic and social development. The concept of
prioritizing children and children-friendly is becoming a widespread consensus
in society.
In the keynote speech session, Wang Pei'an, deputy director of the Population
Resources and Environment Committee of the 13th National Committee of the
Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, former deputy director and
Party Group Member of the National Health and Family Planning Commission, said
that high-quality early childhood development is the starting point for
high-quality population development. It is also a crucial aspect of promoting
the construction of a birth-friendly society and facilitating the long-term
balanced development of the population. Improving early childhood development
policies will help improve child birth levels, improve population quality, and
enhance family development capabilities. Currently, China's high-quality early
childhood development is facing many new challenges, such as the reduction in
child population due to low birth rates, disparities in parental investment in
child-rearing and education, significant urban-rural gap in child development,
prominent early childhood development problems in rural areas, and the
insufficient service and development facilities and venues for early childhood
development. He proposed incorporating the early childhood development into a
specialized basic public service, increasing financial investment in the early
childhood development, expanding the supply of universal childcare services,
optimizing maternity leave systems, elevating the promotion of family
development to a national strategy, improving the policy system to promote
family development, and providing more venues for the early childhood
development in communities, public institutions, enterprises, schools, and other
places.
During the symposium, Lu Mai, former Vice Chairman of CDRF, announced an
initiative to bring China REACH to 100,000 rural children. The China REACH
project, targeting children aged 6-36 months, has been carried out in
underdeveloped rural areas of China since 2015. Through "one-to-one" home
visits, the project provide caregivers of 0-3 year olds with parentingknowledge
and techniques. The project aims to enhance the scientific parenting knowledge
and skills of caregivers, and improve the level of family education and early
childhood development in rural areas. Specific goals include achieving a risk
screening coverage rate of over 80% in project areas, achieving a "one-to-one"
service coverage rate of over 80% for infants and toddlers, and ensuring that
the development level of infants and toddlers will reach or approach that of
urban children.
The agenda of this symposium based on key issues of early childhood
development, discussing the important connections between child development and
high-quality population development, and exploring how to provide high-quality
early development services to more disadvantaged rural children from the
perspective of promoting social equity. The symposium introduced the experience
of domestic and international early childhood development comprehensive
demonstration projects, and how countries can accelerate the universalization of
early childhood care and preschool education services through national
policies.
The symposium also discussed progress in research, policy, and programs in
various countries in terms of nutrition, health (especially mental health),
protection, and integration of family and community education, with the aim of
strengthening international exchanges on child development and provide valuable
references for the enhancing child development in China.
CDRF has long been focusing on the development of children's nutrition,
health, education and other aspects in Chinese underdeveloped areas, and
provides scientific evidence for national policy formulation through social
experiments. CDRF also conducts extensive exchanges on research and practice in
the field of child development internationally. From 2010 to 2021, CDRF held
seven "International Symposiums on Poverty Alleviation and Child Development",
with participation of state officials, officials from the Ministry of Education
and the National Health Commission among other ministries, representatives of
major international organizations, and experts and scholars, delivering policy
and social impact.
