Abstract: There are 4,064 kindergarten principals and teachers from six cities in eastern, central and western China participated in this research, and the objective is to analyze the developmental problems and challenges confronted with the early childhood education in China. The findings indicate that, in despite of some positive results of the implementation of Phase II Three-Year Action Plan under the “two-child” policy, there are still existing serious problems in early childhood education in China such as inadequate funding, out-of-dated facilities, shortage of teachers and lack of policies for the disadvantaged children. However, the main factors restricting the scientific development of early childhood education in China are the lack of legislation for early childhood education, the long-term insufficient financial investment, the lack of policies to keep up kindergarten teachers' social status and wages, the imbalanced distribution of regional public financial resources and the dual structure of urban and rural areas. It is, therefore, imperative to solve the current problems to deepen the reform and to promote a scientific development of early childhood education in the new era.

Key words: two-child Policy, Three-Year Action Plan for Early Childhood Education, early childhood education