But another reason is that local governments in Japan give priority to children of lower-income (and single or disabled) parents in public kindergartens/nurseries. Usually tuition is fully (or in large part) subsidized by the local welfare office for parents with an annual income of below 1,000,000 yen (77,000 yuan).

And if parents need to send their children to private schools because they don't get a seat in public schools, a large number of local governments subsidize tuition for them, depending on their income and their children's age.

More than average-income parents in Japan often choose to pay 53,000 yen (4,000 yuan) a month for private kindergartens. A friend who lives in central Tokyo with two small children (ages 5 and 3) did not even bother to apply to public kindergartens, for she knew her application would be rejected because of her relatively high income. But another friend, a single mother of two daughters (ages 8 and 7) who lives in suburban Tokyo, is exempted from paying any fees for her children's education because of her lower income.

Parents of children going to public elementary and middle schools in Japan don't have to pay any tuition irrespective of how much they earn. Such schools provide free textbooks, too. This policy also covers foreigners living legally in Japan.

Though most Japanese parents send their children to private kindergartens nowadays, until the early 1980s Japan had very few private kindergartens for average income parents. What made matters worse were the limited number of public schools, because of which many parents had to stand in queues for hours on the first registration day to get their wards admitted to public kindergartens.

In the mid-1970s, my mother woke up at 4 am to queue up to get me admitted to a kindergarten in a Tokyo suburb. Today, that kindergarten has been closed down because a large number of private kindergartens and the declining population. In fact, my kindergarten has now become an old people's home.

There is no doubt that as the average family income rises in China, more parents will be able to send their children to private schools. But the income gap may widen further and low-income parents could continue to struggle to find quality education for their children.

China has to ensure that every child gets early and elementary education. For that, local governments have to set up more public (or quasi-public) kindergartens. More importantly, they should grant subsidies to lower-income parents or public education loans to those who want to (or have no choice but to) enroll their children in non-public schools. Only when every child has access to quality education can China become a mature and healthy society.

The author is a Japanese freelance writer.