Kindergartens in Chisinau’s center overcrowded because “the ones from Government and Parliament want their kids near their jobs”

The number of children attending the kindergartens in Chisinau has risen with 1,000 compared with a year ago. The chief of the Education Direction, Tatiana Nagnibeda-Tverdohleb, has told Info-Prim Neo that already 5800 children are on the lists of the education year 2008-2009. Parents can submit application till the end of summer. According to her, half of the children will attend crèches, a reason why 49 of them will be re-opened. Keeping one child at the kindergarten will cost some 250 lei a month, from which the parent pays 75 lei, while the rest of the money is covered from the state budget. The chief of the kindergarten service of the Chisinau Education Direction, Florica Rusu, has told Info-Prim Neo that on those 3,5 lei paid by parents and 7,5 lei paid by the Government daily for a child, he/she enjoys 4 meals. Parents decide to pay 2-3 lei a day more for better food. The parents’ money is used to organize sportive training or to study foreign languages. She says 146 kindergartens work in Chisinau now, from which 84 in Romanian, 40 are mixed and 22 are in Russian. According to Florica Rusu, all the kindergartens belong to the state. Asked if there will be sufficient places in kindergartens, Rusu says “all the children should have a place.” At the same time she recognized there are over-solicited kindergartens, as the ones in the Centru district, “because the ones from the Government and Parliament want their kids to be near their jobs.” Asked by Info-Prim Neo, a number of parents have said, in fact, the expenditures for a child in kindergarten are much bigger. Only matriculation tax is over 200 lei. Some parents say they are initially told there are no free places, as the kindergarten managers become more willing when receiving signs of attention. They say they are not happy that sometimes are impelled to pay unofficial payments of 80 lei a month.