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Monday, 19.09.2011
What to do with the children: Moscow schools abolish nurseries
Moscow. Moscow´s Primary Schools abolish nurseries. Some schools refuse to admit new students and blame new hygiene regulations for this. Parents are outraged but powerless. Schools, run as a business?
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The consumer protection agency, Rospotrebnadzor, tightened the requirements for conditions in nurseries for the beginning of the new school year:"Bedrooms for first grade students, who attend the nursery, need to be split into areas for boys and girls. These need to be equipped with cots and single beds", it is quoted in the text.
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Schools no longer want children in the afternoon
The split of boys and girls at this age is arguable, however the demand for beds is sensible. Many schools use this opportunity to evade the duty of having to entertain children after lessons have ended.
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A school in Yubileiny, a satellite city of Moscow, announced to parents that due to the lack of beds the nursery would no longer be available. "Mothers are shocked". They reduce their work hours to part time. Who does not have this opportunity has to hand in their notice, told Alexander, a 45 year old father of a first grader, the newspaper "Moscovsky Komsomolets.
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Single parents: What to do with the children?
For young mothers in everyday work this is a big problem. For years, Russia's divorce rate has been one of the highest in comparison to other countries. Many mothers with schoolchildren are single parents and therefore rely on their jobs.
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But what to do with the children? Yubileiny is in fact no isolated case. In other towns around Moscow, and even in the Russian capital, more and more schools tell parents that the afternoon sessions have been canceled due to hygiene regulations.
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Attempt to collect support money
The Moscow Children´s Rights Commissioner, Yevgeny Buinmovich, suggested that the school directors want to force parents to pay for the nursery place that is free of charge, under current legislation. Indeed, a number of parents are willing to agree to a paid service.
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But the service offered by school nurseries need to be improved, warns Bunimovich. Up to now, the majority of educators are acting only as supervisors, to check that the children are not misbehaving. The completion of homework or meaningful playtime with the children in the nursery happens only in rare cases.
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School as a business...
In any case, fee paying after-school care will be introduced widely in the coming years. The Russian Ministry of Education has already scheduled cutbacks in schools. Even the state financing of individual subjects is danger. The new ideology is: schools should support themselves as much as possible. If schools have to prove how to manage with limited resources, it seems certain, that the nurseries are most likely to be canceled, should they not be able to fund themselves.
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The German School in Moscow increases nursery fees
Actually: At the German School in Moscow the service offered in the afternoon will not change much, the child care in the afternoon has been charged for some time.
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Anyone who wants to put their children into the nursery at the embassy in the new school year may do so again. Only the price increases: The cost for the nursery and lunch was €3,900 last year and will be €4,200 for the year 2011/2012.
Original German text can be found here >>>
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