Conchi Narváez: “It will allow us to provide educational coverage to these early age groups of families with children between zero and three years old residing in the municipality”
Clari Martel: The opening of the first cycle in two of our centers is a significant advance. “A pilot project that we hope to be definitively implemented after the trial period”
The Department of Education, Universities, Culture and Sports of the Government of the Canary Islands will extend its pilot project for the implementation of the First Cycle of Early Childhood Education (0-3 years) with the opening of classrooms at this level in 65 new centers on the islands that will offer 1.196 new places during the next school year.
Gran Canaria will have 23 new classrooms for this first cycle of Preschool in as many schools, two of them in San Bartolomé Tirajana, specifically the CEIP Juan Grande and Las Dunas.
In this way, in the 2023/24 school year there will be a total of 1.793 places in 99 public centers dependent on the educational department of the regional Executive, since this measure expands the offer of 597 places in 34 Early Childhood and Primary Education Centers ( CEIP) and Compulsory Education Centers (CEO) of the current year, when the Canary Islands had free public places for this age group in Ministry centers for the first time.
The centers that have these new classrooms have been selected after an analysis of each of the municipalities of the Autonomous Community of the Canary Islands and the assessment of the pre-existing offer, both in public and private centers, in order to detect the needs in the early schooling and responding to it. All this under the design of a model for the implementation of units of this progressive and flexible cycle.
In this sense, Mayor Conchi Narváez expressed her satisfaction, "because it will allow us to provide educational coverage to these early age groups of families with children between zero and three years old residing in the municipality."
The Councilor for Education, Clari Martel, spoke in the same way. who highlighted the significant progress that constitutes the opening of the first cycle. "A pilot project that we hope to be definitively implemented after the trial period."
To put these classrooms into operation, one of the actions included in the Strategic Plan of the First Cycle of Early Childhood Education (0-3 years), the Canarian Government has carried out works with the aim of adapting the classrooms and thus converting them into spaces learning enhancers, and new teaching staff have been appointed and hired from other non-teaching professional profiles.
Within the framework of said Plan, the regional Executive will create 3.879 places from 0 to 3 years old, so that for the 2024/25 academic year the Archipelago will have 9.369 public places in its educational centers and municipal nursery schools.
The counselor of the area, Manuela Armas, explained that this initiative seeks to extend the right to a school place that is “accessible, affordable and inclusive to all girls and boys in the Canary Islands under three years of age.” “This is the best way to compensate for the effects of inequalities of economic, social, territorial and cultural origin that hinder their comprehensive development,” she added.
The head of the department also highlighted that schooling at these ages allows early detection and attention to learning difficulties and evolutionary development, and constitutes one of the best ways to promote the improvement of future educational results and performance. Likewise, the work-life balance of families and women's access to the labor market are also directly favored by the universalization of the Early Childhood Education cycle.
The evaluation of the operation of this educational stage, by the Canarian Agency for University Quality and Educational Evaluation (ACCUEE), as well as by the different organizations with powers in the matter, to verify compliance with the objectives and purposes of Education. Early Childhood Education and the Strategic Plan for the First Cycle of Early Childhood Education in the Canary Islands, has confirmed the convenience of continuing with this experience in the centers where it is already implemented and expanding it for the new school year.
Strategic plan for the first cycle of Early Childhood Education
The offer of places in schools dependent on the Ministry of Education and the creation of new places in municipal Nursery Schools are two of the measures contemplated in the Strategic Plan for the first cycle of Early Childhood Education in the Canary Islands (0-3 years) of the Government of Canary Islands.
The objective of this initiative is to increase public places until reaching 40% of the net schooling rate for those ages in the 2024-25 academic year, and its approval is both a mandate of the Canary Islands Non-University Education Law and an objective of Government, which coincides with the boost that the Organic Law of Modification of the Organic Law of Education (LOMLOE) has wanted to give to this school educational stage, in addition to being an objective of the Canarian Agenda 2030.
One of the purposes contemplated by this instrument is the improvement of the schooling rate in municipally owned Nursery Schools through an instrument of cooperation with the town councils, for which shared management and financing formulas are established. For this administrative collaboration, there is a framework agreement with the Canarian Federation of Municipalities (FECAM) and specific agreements with local corporations. Consequently, the Ministry assumes the financing of between 33,3% and 66,6% of the fee that families pay for a place in municipal schools, depending on their different income levels.
Interested persons may request a school place in educational centers according to the student admission procedure planned by the Ministry of Education for the next academic year and the proposed calendar for said academic year, which can be consulted on the Ministry's website.
