Xinjiang to strengthen preschool bilingual education

URUMQI - China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region will build more kindergartens and hire more bilingual teachers to improve its three-year bilingual pre-school education.

A total of 4,387 bilingual kindergartens will be built or expanded in 2017 across the region. And 10,000 bilingual teachers will be hired this year, 6,500 more compared with previous years, the regional education department announced Thursday.

The region will also provide more training courses for bilingual teachers and encourage more college graduates to work as bilingual teachers.

From 2011 to 2015, Xinjiang built 2,500 new bilingual kindergartens in rural areas, bringing the region's pre-school education penetration rate to 77 percent, or 480,000 pre-schoolers, according to official figures.

With central government funds, Xinjiang plans to offer three years of bilingual pre-school education, instead of the current two, in the region's rural areas during the 2016-2020 period.