Waiting lists in nurseries L’Hospitalet de Llobregat grow and the council assumes that there will be “more families [en relación a cursos anteriores] unable to get a place school”, according to a municipal report accessed by this newspaper, in the great Catalan city for this course 2022-2023.
Are 506 children from 0 to 3 years those currently included in waiting lists to enter municipal nurseries in L’Hospitalet. At the beginning of the 2021-2022 academic year they were 333 students vacancies pending and at the beginning of the 2019-2020 academic year, when the pandemic had not yet made an appearance, the waiting figure in the city’s municipal nurseries reached 338 seatswhich returns a increase of about 200 children no place this course.
In the global calculation, the demand for nursery places in L’Hospitalet has increased by 24% in relation to the past course: there have been some 1,220 applications (986 last year) when the total supply of places in the city is 755 (770 last year) among the 16 local nurseries added the municipal ones, those of the Generalitat, the private non-profit and the private ones subsidized by the Generalitat.
By type of nursery, those that highest rise in the demand for places have experienced are the of the Generalitat (312 requests, 43% more than last year), followed by the municipal (+22%) and the private ones nonprofit (+10%).
“Call effect” for the gratuity of P-2
By age groups, the greatest increase in demand has occurred in the 2 to 3 year old (in municipal nurseries, 371 requests compared to 293 last year or 294 in the 2019-2020 academic year), a phenomenon that the L’Hospitalet City Council attributes to a “call effect” caused by the new gratuity of the course as a result of the subsidy, in charge of the Generalitatof the third of €1,600 for each square that until now families paid for.
East ‘call effect’ of applications derived from the new financing of Infant 2 in publicly owned schools “makes the waiting lists are even more numerous“, assures the municipal report of L’Hospitalet of this beginning of the course.
The Councilor for Education of L’Hospitalet, David Quiros, criticizes the way in which the free P-2 has been implemented. “The Generalitat does not bet on building nurseries in our city and without universalizing the service, that is, without creating the pertinent places, it is not possible to answer to the increase in requests,” says Quirós.
The mayor recognizes that the local administration explores the building of new centers and also that of the ‘Santa Coloma model’, a city that has municipalized the management of eight nurseries, two routes that are “slow and complex”. As long as the local squares do not grow, “the families that remain will be forced to partially pay, since they will have to access a private or subsidized nursery, where P-2 is not totally free,” concludes Quirós.
Criticism of the local world to Educació
At the end of June, when some Catalan cities already glimpsed increases in applications for municipal nursery places, the deputy for Education of the Barcelona Provincial Council (governed by PSC and Junts), the former mayor of Mollet del Vallès Josep Monras (PSC), already criticized Educació, Ministry today in charge of CKDfor the potential “call effect” that the P-2 subsidy could cause.
“Who will tell the families that they have not entered the nurseries? Municipalities“, affirmed Monràs at the time, who also warned that the Generalitat would only cover the cost of schooling, although “the city councils will continue to pay the bills for supplies, maintenance, cleaning or additional support for students with specific needs”.
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Quirós joins that vision. “Although the competence lies with the Generalitat, it is the town councils that have to care for families who, with good reason, complain about not having obtained a place despite the announcement of free P-2″, says the councilor of L’Hospitalet.
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