Kindergarten Places in Short Supply
Kindergarten Places in Short Supply
The government in Kazakstan is trying to persuade people to have more children, but is failing to address a severe shortage of kindergartens, say NBCentralAsia analysts.
The 2008 government budget announced last week contains provision for the construction of four new kindergartens for the whole of Kazakstan.
According to the Gazeta.kz news website, only 27 per cent of preschool children go to kindergarten, and some 90,000 others are waiting for a place.
In February, President Nursultan Nazarbaev put a number of measures in place to boost the country’s population. These included raising state benefits for mothers who have just given birth, giving health insurance to all pregnant women, and maintaining pension contributions for working mothers while they are on maternity leave.
NBCentralAsia analysts say the government is failing families by encouraging couples to have more babies, but not providing care and education for preschool children.
Farhad Kasenov, the head of the Bolashak education programme, says children aged between two and five have been left out of the Kazak education system altogether.
“Preschool education in Kazakstan is in a deplorable state. We talk about increasing birth rates and at the same time, we are not creating the right conditions for it,” he said.
This year, some 19 billion tenge or 150 million US dollars has been allocated to the government programme for raising the birth rate.
President Nazarbaev has given instructions for every village with a population over 3,000 to be provided with a kindergarten, but according to Kasenov, “There are districts with 300,000 residents that have no kindergartens. Many children have to be looked after by their grandmothers.”
Kazakstan went through an economic depression after it gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Political scientist Eduard Poletaev recalls that in that period, birth rates plummeted and many kindergartens were sold off.
“Kindergartens were a heavy burden for local government. So then all these “loss-making” institutions began being sold off,” he said.
Poletaev argues that the state should buy back the kindergartens that were sold off, finance the construction of new ones, and make it compulsory for them to be included in new urban development projects.
“Only a few new towns have kindergartens included in the planning. There must be an agreement between the government and the business sector that kindergartens have to be included in the infrastructure,” he said.
(NBCentralAsia draws comment and analysis from a broad range of political observers across the region)
The 2008 government budget announced last week contains provision for the construction of four new kindergartens for the whole of Kazakstan.
According to the Gazeta.kz news website, only 27 per cent of preschool children go to kindergarten, and some 90,000 others are waiting for a place.
In February, President Nursultan Nazarbaev put a number of measures in place to boost the country’s population. These included raising state benefits for mothers who have just given birth, giving health insurance to all pregnant women, and maintaining pension contributions for working mothers while they are on maternity leave.
NBCentralAsia analysts say the government is failing families by encouraging couples to have more babies, but not providing care and education for preschool children.
Farhad Kasenov, the head of the Bolashak education programme, says children aged between two and five have been left out of the Kazak education system altogether.
“Preschool education in Kazakstan is in a deplorable state. We talk about increasing birth rates and at the same time, we are not creating the right conditions for it,” he said.
This year, some 19 billion tenge or 150 million US dollars has been allocated to the government programme for raising the birth rate.
President Nazarbaev has given instructions for every village with a population over 3,000 to be provided with a kindergarten, but according to Kasenov, “There are districts with 300,000 residents that have no kindergartens. Many children have to be looked after by their grandmothers.”
Kazakstan went through an economic depression after it gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Political scientist Eduard Poletaev recalls that in that period, birth rates plummeted and many kindergartens were sold off.
“Kindergartens were a heavy burden for local government. So then all these “loss-making” institutions began being sold off,” he said.
Poletaev argues that the state should buy back the kindergartens that were sold off, finance the construction of new ones, and make it compulsory for them to be included in new urban development projects.
“Only a few new towns have kindergartens included in the planning. There must be an agreement between the government and the business sector that kindergartens have to be included in the infrastructure,” he said.
(NBCentralAsia draws comment and analysis from a broad range of political observers across the region)
