Two-thirds of Almaty children don’t go to kindergartens

Over 60% of Almaty children don’t go to kindergartens, Tengrinews.kz reports, citing Lyudmila Seilova, Almaty Educational Department's pre-school education chief expert, as saying. According to her, it is still a problem to find a place in preschool education facilities in Almaty. There are 184 thousand children aged 0-7 in Almaty and only 42 thousand of them attend kindergartens. Seilova said that city authorities planned to start construction of 9 kindergartens this year. Two kindergartens would be put into service in 2012. “We are searching for solutions for this queuing problem. We construct new pre-school facilities; we return kindergarten buildings back into state property and evict tenants from them. However it is not a one-day task for a big city like Almaty,” the chief specialist said. She added that the number of children who were in need of a place in a kindergarten increased by 7-8% every year. Andrey Dupik, deputy director of the Center of New Technologies and Education said that an Internet-based queuing system started working in 2012 at Bala.Edualmaty.kz website. About 20 000 applications were submitted via this website according to the Center of New Technologies and Education. According to Dupik, there is an advantage to this system: the enrollment process is more transparent, there is less red tape and less corruption. Parents can also queue up their kid via Almaty Public Service Centers. The lists are formed based on the date of queuing, and only people from socially vulnerable strata entitled to benefits may get any preferential treatment. The system is currently being used as an alternative option to the main registration process.