3 children in 10 miss kindergarten: study

3 children in 10 do not attends kindergarten, shows a research compiled by IDIS Viitorul think tank, Info-Prim Neo has learnt from a communique of the institute. The study shows that the kindergarten education in Moldova do not offer equal chances for the children’s development. Big discrepancies emerge in terms of the children having access to pre-school education both in rural and urban areas. The author, expert Natalia Vladicescu, says the kindergarten education in Moldova is a must impelled by the system: “Not attending kindergartens disadvantages the children at primary school.” The study finds a total disparity of reasons for the children from villages and towns not attending the kindergarten: “If the village parents complain of not having kindergartens (no nursery school is there in 270 localities), of the big distance to the closest kindergarten, of money shortages, lack of heating, then, in bigger towns, especially in Chisinau, the preschool institutions are overcrowded, as there are long lists to register kids in nursery schools.” “The educational neglecting is considered to be a passive way of ill-treating a child,” Vladicescu specified. As for financing the preschool institutions, they absorb 16% of the education costs, that is 1.1% of the GDP. “The money is not enough, related to the needs of keeping the institutions and of insuring adequate conditions for children. The wages in education are among the lowest,” she says. The number of private kindergartens has dropped dramatically: if there were over 400 of them in 1995, now there is only one private kindergarten. In these conditions, some state-owned kindergarten create so called “private groups” for which the parents pay more to render better conditions to their little ones. “The mechanism of work of these groups is unclear and it creates inequities in relation to the other children. The amounts paid monthly by parents vary greatly at different kindergartens,” the sociologist points out. “To better the situation in preschool education, the actors in charge must get involved: the state’s agencies and families, so as to insure equal chances to every child to an education specific to his/her age to insure his/her development, Natalia Vladicescu recommends. The study on the preschool education in Moldova is part of the Public Policies series of compilations launched by IDIS Viitorul in 2002, with the support of LGI/OSI.