In North Ossetia, half of children under six do not attend kindergarten

In total 5500 children of North Ossetia have no chances to attend preschool establishments. Only 56.7 percent of children aged 1.5-6 years are covered by preschool education.

The figures were announced during the roundtable, held on December 23 in Vladikavkaz on the topic "Ensuring Children's Rights in the Republic to Accessible and High-Quality Preschool Education".

As a whole, North Ossetia operates 212 pre-school education establishments; of them 124 ones are in cities - they bring up 19,090 children, although the capacity is 15,289 places. The 88 rural kindergartens rear 5867 children.

The overwhelming majority of kindergartens are run by municipalities, and, as noted by Deputy Liudmila Tokaeva, only through persistence in achieving the goals, exhibited by heads of district authorities, the problem of shortage in kindergartens may be solved.

"For several years, the Alagir District has carried out the purposeful work towards reconstruction and repair of kindergartens; and now in the district 97 percent of children are covered by preschool education - the highest level in the republic," Ms Tokaeva gave an example.

The improvement of the demographic situation in the republic began in 2006, when for the first time in the last twenty years the birth rate exceeded the mortality one; however, the positive trend has exacerbated the situation with kindergartens to the limit; there were cases when kindergartens had been unreasonably re-profiled or liquidated.

The kindergartens fail to observe the norms of providing duly balanced diets to children, and, according to the Deputy Soltan Godizov, the quality of supplied foodstuffs and prices on them are serious concerns.

As noted by Galina Evsikova, the head of a kindergarten, apart from the logistical aspect, it is same important now to change the existing system of remuneration - the salary of a beginning educator is 4300 roubles - same as a technical worker.

She also drew attention to the fact that establishments are unable to acquire developing games, which children need so much - in many kindergartens toys are purchased at the expense of parents and humanitarian organizations.