QINGDAO plans to build 1,642 kindergartens with 280,000 places by 2015, according to the government’s planning of pre-school education. More than 80 percent of the kindergartens will be financed by the city government. The planning will be carried out in two stages, with the completion of the first stage before 2013, to provide 750 kindergartens. The planning is on the basis of the government’s first survey of the city’s pre-school education facilities, which covered kindergartens across the city. There are 1,525 kindergartens with at least three classes in the city. About 222,000 children aged between 3 and 6 are studying in the kindergartens. (Li Hao, Lin Gang) | 