THIS EMPIRICAL STUDY ON early childhood education (ECE) in China looks into a randomly selected sample of 91 kindergartens and 178 classrooms providing ECE for children aged three to six in Zhejiang Province. Drawing on internationally established theories on ECE and adopting the Chinese Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (CECERS), a measurement instrument specially designed for quality assessment of ECE programs for Chinese children, the researchers have sought to find out how important and effective whole-group teaching is as compared with individual, child-centred free play. Some of the findings may appear alarming to ECE scholars in the west, and this phenomenon, as well as the limitations of this study, indicates fruitful avenues for future research.