Abstract: Preschool teachers are professional people equipped with specialized education or training, scientific professional philosophy and ethics, diverse professional knowledge and comprehensive professional ability, and they are specialized in educating preschool children under the “Professional Standards for Preschool Teachers”. In order to regulate the professional personnel in attitude and behavior, the corresponding standards are put forward to enhance the overall quality of the preschool teachers. This research analyzes the current situation of rural preschool teachers’ professional development in Yunnan province. It is concluded that, compared with the requirements in the standard, these teachers’ rate of reaching to the standard is low, their professional knowledge is in need, and the situation varies a lot for the public and private preschool teachers, for those who have the teacher certificate or not, for teachers of different ethnic group, major, age and so on.

Key words: rural preschool teachers, professional development, professional standards