The waiting list of children to attend kindergartens that was formed due to lack of preschool facilities should be eliminated by 2021. This was stated by Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Groysman in his communication with media people in Dnipro.

The Head of Government reminded that since the beginning of the year the queue to kindergartens has been decreased by 13 thousand places - up to 65 thousand. «We expect the queue to be reduced by another 13 thousand by the end of the year. The waiting list of kids to attend preschool facilities is an inadmissible issue. «This is totally unacceptable to make children to stand in the queue, to this end we will spare no efforts to eliminate the said waiting list by 2020», the Prime Minister underlined.

He drew attention to the fact the queue could be overcome by building new preschool facilities also at the expense of local budgets, which are growing due to decentralization and overall economic growth. The Head of Government stressed that very much will depend on the local authorities which should build kindergartens and overcome the shortfall of places.

Background

According to the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, in total during the 2017 year 9.943 places were created in preschool facilities. The largest number of places was created in Lviv region – 2.122. The largest waiting list of children to attend preschool facilities in Odessa and Kyiv regions is 9.2 thousand and 8.6 thousand respectively. In 2016, 26.5 thousand places were created in preschool educational institutions.