AN organisation that provides childcare training could export its courses to China following a fact-finding mission to the Far East.

Institutions in China are keen to work with Training in Childcare, of Boldon, South Tyneside.

Angela Brown, the company's founder, recently returned from the country, where she met officials from the All China Youth Federation, the China Youth and Children Research Centre and other representatives of education in major cities.

A delegation of educationalists and officials from the country is expected to visit the North-East later this year.

Mrs Brown said: "The officials we met in Beijing, Shanghai and Wuhan are really keen to work with us.

"The issue of childcare is very topical in China at the moment. A national conference has just taken place on comparative approaches to early years education, and they were very interested in working collaboratively with Training in Childcare.

"We now need to establish what we can offer them to meet their needs. There are some major cultural differences between us.

"We don't simply want to impose our methods on them and will need to work closely with them to help them understand our different perspectives."

Mrs Brown said that even with very young children, the focus in China was on achievement.

"Chinese children do not engage in free play, inventing games and using their imaginations to create their own fun as ours do. In China, play is very structured and only takes place in formal settings."

The week-long tour of China by the Wearside delegation, which included project manager Viv Muirhead and finance and IT administrator Harry Li, attracted the attention of the China Daily and Shanghai Star newspapers.

Mrs Brown, who is the North-East representative for Skills Active, part of Sector Skills, said she would be seeking further advice from UK Trade and Investment, which supported the trip.