The pandemic has canceled over 200 places for children in infant-toddler centers throughout Sardinia. And on the island, parents pay the third highest percentage of expenses to have the guarantee of the service.
This was revealed by the latest Istat survey on the offer of educational services for children, which reports the consolidated data referring to the school year 2020/2021.
In the whole of Italy in the middle of the period considered there were “13,542 educational services for early childhood with over 350,000 places authorized to operate, of which 49.1% in public structures”. A 2.9% drop in availability for hospitality “mainly due to service interruptions” caused by the virus.
The numbers for Sardinia: 8355 places available in the last year compared to 8556 in the previous year. The decrease was therefore around 2.3%. The offer has decreased more in the public sector: 3,233 places offered against 3,388 in 2019/2020. The private individual has only lost about forty.
In one year, the municipalities spent almost 600 thousand euros less to guarantee nursery and spring services: the latest survey speaks of 15 million and 129 thousand euros against 15 and 699 thousand of the previous year.
Sardinian parents cover about 18.6% of the general costs with the fees. The national average is 12.8. And it is worse than the Sardinians only the Marche (20.8%) and the Lucanians (25.7%).
(Unioneonline / EF)