In recent years, some normal colleges have accelerated their transformation and adjustment.
According to the article “Hebei Deepens the Reform of Teacher Education Innovation Mechanism and Consolidates the Foundation of High-level Teacher Team in the New Era” recently released on the website of the Ministry of Education, Hebei Province takes the pilot reform of the teacher education innovation mechanism as an opportunity to adapt to the changing trend of school-age population, systematically promote the innovation and system reconstruction of teacher education mechanism, and provide strong teacher guarantee for accelerating the construction of a strong education province.
The article mentioned that Hebei Province has guided municipal application-oriented undergraduate colleges to dynamically adjust the teacher major and training scale in light of population changes and local needs, focusing on cultivating high-quality undergraduate-level primary school teachers. Promote the transformation of junior colleges and improve the quality and efficiency of normal education. Strictly control the scale of junior college teacher majors, add and expand the enrollment scale of supporting local leading industries, infant care, smart health and elderly care, and steadily promote the transformation and development of junior colleges. Actively explore the collaborative development path of junior college and undergraduate normal colleges to comprehensively improve the overall quality of teacher education in the province.
According to the 2025 National Education Development Statistical Bulletin released by the Ministry of Education, there are 2.6126 million full-time teachers in preschool education across the country. The proportion of full-time teachers with a college degree or above is 96.05%. In 2024, there will be 2.8319 million full-time teachers in preschool education across the country. In other words, the number of full-time kindergarten teachers decreased by 219,300 last year.
In recent years, with the changes in the school-age population, a number of normal colleges and universities that mainly train preschool teachers have accelerated their transformation and adjustment.
Last year, Hengyang Preschool Teachers College officially established the Department of Measurement, Inspection and Automation, established a department leadership team and a team of professional teachers, and fully launched the department construction work. This is the school’s core measure to respond to Hunan Province’s “Optimization of the Layout of Higher Education Institutions” and “Optimization of Subjects and Majors” plans to transform into a metrology vocational and technical college. It marks that the school will accurately meet the needs of advanced manufacturing and provide high-quality technical and technical talents for the regional metrology industry.
Zhumadian Preschool Teachers College, while strengthening its main normal majors such as preschool education and early education, also actively expands non-normal fields such as intelligent manufacturing, digital media art, and modern services. In 2026, the school plans to apply for eight new majors, including drone application technology and embodied intelligent robotics technology, gradually forming a school-running structure with “teacher education as the foundation and multiple majors as support.”
At the same time, many kindergarten teachers’ colleges have accelerated their efforts in the field of elderly care, adding majors related to elderly care and cultivating relevant talents in the field of elderly care services.
For example, the Smart Health Elderly Care Service and Management major of Zhengzhou Preschool Teachers College was established in 2026. It is an emerging major that the school actively serves the national strategy of “actively responding to population aging” and meets the urgent demand for talents in the elderly care service industry.
In 2025, Guangzhou Preschool Teachers College will add two majors: stage art design and production, and smart health and elderly care services and management. Among them, the smart health and elderly care major accurately connects with the layout of Guangzhou’s key industries and strives to fill the talent gap in health care services.
Suzhou Preschool Teachers College is a long-established preschool teacher school that has been established for 50 years. This year, for the first time, the school has opened three new majors for the elderly: community rehabilitation, smart health care services and management, and sports health care and rehabilitation. In the first year of enrollment, all 135 enrollment plans were filled.
