The number of Chinese kindergartens has fallen by a quarter in four years, prompting the closure of tens of thousands of schools in the country as a precipitous drop in births hits the education system.

Enrolments in China’s kindergartens have declined by 12mn children between 2020 and 2024, from a peak of 48mn, according to data from the country’s ministry of education. The number of kindergartens, serving Chinese children aged 3-5, has also fallen by 41,500 from a high of nearly 295,000 in 2021.

Falling enrolments are now “baked into the system and that’s not going to change”, said Stuart Gietel-Basten, director of the Center for Aging Science at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He added that compared with five or 10 years ago, the decline in births was “huge”.