As of the end of 2013, China had a total of 198,553 kindergartens, rising 17,302, or 9.5% from 2012. The number of kindergartens there saw annual average expansion of 3,637 during 2003-2009 and 16,044 during 2010-2013. In the year 2013, the country’s new entrants to kindergarten amounted to 19,700,271, an increase of 581,117 or 3.0% over the last year; enrollments of kindergartens grew by 2,089,279 or 5.7% from 2012 to 38,946,903; gross enrollment rate of 3-year preschool education i.e. the proportion of school-age children (3-5 years old) in kindergartens attained 67.5%, up 3 percentage points from 2012 and 16.6 percentage points against 2009.