In the Irkutsk region, only 61 children aged 15 to 7 attend kindergartens

In Irkutsk Region, over 24 thousand children are on waiting lists for kindergartens, and authorities are seeking ways to reduce the shortage of places. The region is already implementing a preschool education development program for 2009 2014, under which new kindergartens, extensions, and renovations are planned. In addition, the government proposes expanding private kindergartens to solve the shortage faster.

In the Irkutsk Region, 24,480 children aged from one and a half to six are waiting for their turn to get into kindergartens. Today, 102,000 children attend preschool educational institutions in the region, while there are 167,000 children of “kindergarten” age in the region overall.
There are currently 967 kindergartens operating in the region, 94.5% of them municipal, and 23 kindergartens are non-state-owned. Twenty kindergartens are owned by Russian Railways OJSC, and three by the Angarsk Electrolysis Chemical Combine.
As Education Minister Natalya Malyavkina said at a meeting of the government of the Irkutsk Region, over the past three years the number of children attending kindergartens has increased by 4%, primarily due to the opening of additional groups in existing kindergartens.
Today, the Irkutsk Region has in effect a regional targeted state program, “Support and Development of Preschool Education for 2009-2014.” The estimated funding for the program amounts to 13 billion 51 million rubles. The regional budget will allocate 5 billion 587 million rubles for the program’s implementation, and municipal budgets will provide 7 billion 464 million rubles. Under this program, the Irkutsk Region plans to commission 77 new preschool educational institutions with 11,300 places, 11 extensions to existing kindergartens with 415 places, and the reconstruction of 55 kindergartens with 5,320 places. “Thus, by 2014 the number of children attending kindergartens will increase to 71% of the total number of preschoolers,” Malyavkina said.
Another solution to the problem was proposed by First Deputy Chairman of the Government of the Irkutsk Region Sergei Sokol. “In the Irkutsk Region, we need to begin building private kindergartens, and in this way we will be able to solve the shortage of places. We must support small and medium-sized businesses; we need to help people create private kindergartens. You need to work out a system of measures, which we will discuss at one of the next meetings,” he said on February 2 at a working meeting of the government of the Irkutsk Region.