After several months of break, the kindergartens should start working on Wednesday (September 9), and should take care of all the children of working parents who have to return to their jobs.
On the other hand, the Government has adopted protocols for the operation of child care institutions, according to which the number of children in an educational group is reduced. In the groups of children up to two years there should not be more than six children and two employees, one caregiver and educator and in the groups with older children there should not be more than 15 children, and for them there should be two employees.
In order to meet this, a larger number of employees and more premises in the kindergartens themselves are needed. The interest of parents who need to take care of children in kindergarten is great, especially in larger cities. According to the new protocols, kindergartens are inadequate to take care of all children whose parents have to return to work.
Problems of this type first surfaced in Bitola and Prilep. In Bitola, for instance, parents of over 800 children asked their children to attend kindergarten from September 9, but there is no room for twenty children in Bitola kindergartens. While in Prilep, out of 1,500 children, according to the new work protocols, there is room for only 606 children in the kindergartens.
Parents are nervous and fear for their jobs in these times of economic crisis. Kindergartens have been closed since the beginning of March, and the Government had 5-6 months to find a solution so that no child would be left without child care.
