Recently, the executive meeting of the State Council deployed the gradual implementation of free preschool education, proposing measures such as "guiding localities to refine work plans as soon as possible, arranging subsidy funds according to the sharing ratio, and ensuring timely and full disbursement", "strengthening dynamic monitoring and evaluation, scientifically calculating the cost of running kindergartens, coordinating subsidy policies for public and private kindergartens, and doing a good job in policy linkage and guarantee for groups such as economically disadvantaged children, orphans, and disabled children". The gradual implementation of free preschool education is an important measure that benefits the people and concerns the long-term development of thousands of households. The implementation of relevant policies provides a solid guarantee for the systematic promotion of educational equity reform. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, China's preschool education has achieved leapfrog development, building a public service system for preschool education that covers urban and rural areas and benefits all. The "Outline of the Plan for Building an Education Strong Country (2024-2035)" issued in January 2025 proposes to "explore gradually expanding the scope of free education". This year's Government Work Report also proposed to gradually promote free preschool education. By expanding inclusive resources through multiple channels, the popularization and level of preschool education have been greatly improved, effectively alleviating the problem of "difficult and expensive admission". As of 2024, there are a total of 253300 kindergartens in China with 35.8399 million children and 2.8319 million full-time teachers in preschool education, achieving the goals of the 14th Five Year Plan ahead of schedule. At the same time, many regions in China have actively explored and implemented free preschool education with different scope, duration, and content based on their own economic, social, and educational development status. Against the backdrop of accelerating the construction of a strong education country and a fertility friendly society, gradually promoting free preschool education is an urgent need to promote the high-quality development of preschool education and a positive response to people's concerns, demonstrating the idea of adhering to the people-centered development of preschool education. Establishing a reasonable financial sharing mechanism is the foundation for promoting free preschool education. The Pre school Education Law of the People's Republic of China clearly stipulates that financial subsidies for preschool education shall be included in the budgets of the central and local governments according to the principle of division of financial powers and expenditure responsibilities. The central government provides support to local coordination through transfer payments. Provincial people's governments shall establish a mechanism for sharing financial subsidies among people's governments at all levels within their administrative regions. It should be noted that there are significant differences in population structure, financial situation, investment in early childhood education resources, and development foundation between the eastern, central, and western regions of China, as well as between urban and rural areas. When refining the implementation plan of free early childhood education policies, each region needs to do its best and act within its capacity, comprehensively consider key factors such as practical conditions and urgent needs, and do a good job in providing the necessary financial support according to local conditions. The subsidy funds should be strictly implemented according to the established sharing ratio to ensure timely and sufficient disbursement of funds. At the same time, we will continuously expand funding channels, gradually establish investment guarantee mechanisms and sharing mechanisms that are compatible with policy implementation, and ensure the stability and long-term effectiveness of free policies. Gradual implementation "means that policy implementation requires a certain amount of time and conditions, and priority orders are established based on the level of development and actual situation, gradually promoting implementation. For example, in terms of the number of years of free education, priority can be given to implementing one year of free education before gradually expanding to three years of free education once the foundation is stable. In terms of free content, priority can be given to waiving education fees, and once conditions are ripe, the free scope can be gradually extended to other related fees. The protection of the rights and interests of special groups is a manifestation of policy fairness and inclusiveness. Prioritizing meeting the needs of economically disadvantaged children, orphans, disabled children, and rural left behind children to receive free preschool education can help ensure early education opportunities for vulnerable groups and promote the advancement of social education equity from the source. In a similar way, it can to some extent reasonably control the overall cost of policy implementation, effectively avoid excessive financial pressure caused by sudden cost increases, and also leave room for adjustment for the continuous optimization of policies. The gradual implementation of free preschool education should pay attention to adhering to the bottom line of quality. The policy objectives should focus on the "dual goals" of education popularization and quality improvement, ensuring that free education does not degrade. The current quality supervision system for preschool education in China is still in the exploratory and transitional stage. Promoting the improvement of the preschool education quality evaluation system and monitoring mechanism guided by promoting the physical and mental health development of young children will help strengthen the dynamic supervision of the quality of free kindergarten care education. Collecting key indicators and data covering the direction of kindergarten operation, conservation and safety, environmental creation, teacher team, etc., can timely grasp the implementation effect of free policies, resource allocation efficiency, changes in education quality, and satisfaction of all parties. Gradually, a quality improvement mechanism with quality monitoring and evaluation as the core focus can be established to guide the operation of every kindergarten, promote the safe and high-quality development of kindergartens, and promote the coordinated improvement of free policies and education quality. The transformation from "universal" to "free" requires not only strengthening the top-level design of policies and the construction of guarantee systems, but also enhancing the strength of policy implementation, the breadth of social collaboration, and the depth of innovative exploration. Only in this way can free preschool education truly transform from "policy dividends" to "people's livelihood benefits", injecting lasting momentum into the construction of an education powerhouse. (New Society)