Sardinia is at the top among the regions of Southern Italy as regards the educational service for early childhood, i.e. nursery schools.
Istat certifies this in its latest report referring to the 2021/2022 educational year.
Looking at the percentage of coverage of places with respect to residents between 0 and 2 years at a regional level , Umbria is the region with the highest level (43.7%) , followed by Emilia Romagna (41.6%), Valle d' Aosta and the Autonomous Province of Trento (41.1%). On the other hand, among the Southern regions, Campania, Sicily and Calabria still remain below 15% (11.7%, 13% and 14.6% respectively), but the figure for Sardinia stands out, which has a coverage of 32.5%, recording the highest level in the South.
Percentage very close to the EU target of 33% set in 2010 (as defined by the Barcelona European Council in 2002), but still far from the new European objective of 45% of children attending quality educational services by 2030.
At a national level, the parameter of 33% coverage of nursery places with respect to resident children has however been set as the Essential Performance Level (LEP) to be guaranteed at a territorial level by 2027.
Precisely 33% (precisely 33.4%) is the percentage - in 2021 - of Italian children aged 0-2 who attend an educational facility, compared to 37.9% of the EU average.
France and Spain are well above 50% and other countries, such as the Netherlands and Denmark, are even at 74.2% and 69.1%.
«In the 2021/2022 educational year – summarizes Istat – 13,518 nurseries and supplementary early childhood services are active in Italy and over 350 thousand places are authorized (48.8% of which are publicly owned).
The offer of nursery schools is recovering after the pandemic - continues the Institute (+1,780 places), but enrollment requests are largely unsatisfied, especially in the South (66.4% in the public sector, 48.7% in the private sector). )".
«The poorest families are penalized in terms of accessibility to the service – concludes the report – both due to the cost of fees and the lack of nursery schools in various areas of the country».
