No place available in nursery schools

In France the cuts in public expenditure have transformed the month of September 2011 in a very complicated one for the families that wanted to enrol their children in nursery schools. Because of the reduction of teachers (around 9000 people lost their jobs in primary school) this year 500 classes less have been created. And those who will suffer the most the consequences of such situation are children aged two years. In fact, in France, primary school is not compulsory for children. Parents, indeed, can decide whether let their children go to school or not when they turn three. Children aged two years can be admitted to nursery schools as well, but only if there are available places and if babies are self-sufficient.

Inevitably, this year, these children will be the most penalized. And their mothers as well. If, indeed, experts disagree about the actual usefulness of an early years education for children’s future success at school, it is by now evident the positive impact that this option has on working mothers. According to the OECD studies, indeed, the employment rate of the women who have the possibility to enrol their children in nursery schools, when the babies are less than three years old, is on average equal to 52% against the 44% of the women who do not. In socially disadvantaged neighbourhoods, where the concentration of one-parent families is higher, the access to primary school is an actual priority established by the law. Nevertheless, the reality is quite different, and the recent report produced by the National Observatory on Sensitive Urban Areas does not even take into account nursery schools.

After all, the early years education for children has been decreasing for years. During the Eighties and Nineties more than 30% of children aged two years went to nursery schools. In 2002 this rate started to decrease and in 2010 it was equal to 12,6%. These are, however, average values emerging from often deep territorial differences. In Lille, in the North of the country, 34% of children aged two years go to school, whereas in the area surrounding Paris the situation is completely different. In Paris, indeed, only one child out of one hundred goes to primary school. At the national level, in 2009 the number of children aged two years who went both to state and private kindergartens – 120’000 – was more than halved compared with 2000.

There exists, however, an explanation to such a situation. In France, in 2000, there was a small baby boom that obliged schools to admit more children aged three, instead of the many newborns. Later, this trend was confirmed, especially because of the reduction of teachers and educational personnel and the high population growth of the country (one of the most fertile in Europe). On this purpose, the High Council of Family (HCF) has recently said in a note “As for a reduction of early years education for children aged less than three years, the Ministry of Education does not foresee any future reversing trend.”