Priority admission to kindergarten for unemployed children

Recruitment to kindergartens and kindergarten units at schools is ongoing or has just finished throughout the country. This year, there are new recruitment rules that arouse emotions wherever there are fewer places in public institutions than those willing.

The provision that makes it easier for an unemployed person to enroll a child in kindergarten at the expense of the children of working parents is particularly controversial. Until now, the communes themselves defined the rules on which children were admitted to kindergartens. However, it was decided that such an important issue should first be regulated by law.

See also: The care allowance for disabled children will increase by PLN 200?

Recruitment fresh

According to its provisions, the new recruitment process takes place in two stages. The admission criteria in the first stage were defined by the Ministry of National Education. Therefore, priority is given to children living in the municipality with a kindergarten, disabled or having disabled siblings, and also brought up in a foster family, with many children or by a single parent. However, this is where MEN’s guidance ends. In the second stage, it is the commune that determines the so-called local criteria for admission to kindergartens, which allow to allocate the remaining vacancies in the institution.

Additional criteria

Among the chosen ones, the financial status of the parent is quite often, and consequently, whether he is working or unemployed. In some communes, this way of admitting children to kindergartens is quite dissatisfied. This is especially true in towns surrounding large agglomerations. In recent years, they have become places where inhabitants of large cities settled, but the growth in the number of people was not followed by the rapid development of infrastructure. And the current system means that, at the very end, children of residents from municipalities other than kindergartens are admitted to public kindergartens.

Parents say

– This is discrimination against working people. Kindergartens were created so that people who go to work could leave their children well looked after. We pay taxes, sometimes very high, but someone assumed that since we earn, we can afford to hire a babysitter or send the child to a private kindergarten – some working parents complain. – When someone does not work, he probably has time and should take care of his own child, not put them in kindergarten and spend the day in front of the TV set. Well, unless it’s working illegally, but then the system cheats twice.

For children from poorer families

The new rules were introduced, among other things, so that children from poorer families, often supported by a social welfare center, could socialize like any other child their age, and not stay at home with their parents. The intentions were good and where there is no shortage of places in public institutions, there is no grinding. However, where there are not enough places for everyone, such selection of admission criteria to kindergartens indicates discrimination against working people – they are not able to score enough points in the recruitment procedure to qualify a child to kindergarten.

There are known situations where the less earning parent would resign from employment – otherwise his entire salary would have to be paid to the child’s nanny or private institutions. However, more and more municipalities – especially municipalities – include points promoting working people in the additional admission criteria. This is the case in Szczecin, for example, where additional points in recruitment could be obtained for settling taxes in the Szczecin tax office or for the fact that both parents are working persons.