Engel Fattakhov: “We are taking pre-school education to a new level”

On October 29 at a briefing on changes in parents’ fees for kindergartens at Tatarstan Cabinet of Ministers Vice-Premier – Tatarstan Minister of Education and Science Engel Fattakhov stated that along with changes in parents’ fees the quality of pre-school education will be improved.

Engel Fattakhov reported that changes in parents’ fees, which will take place from January 1, 2014, are connected with the new Federal Law 273-FZ “About Education”. “For the first time ever, pre-school education has been included in compulsory education as its first stage. In this regard, the quality of pre-school education must be improved and a child-centered approach must be applied. One of the main tasks is serving well-nourished and quality food at kindergartens,” Engel Fattakhov noted.

The Minister stressed that a wide range of compulsory services to be provided by pre-school organizations have been defined under the main educational programme. Besides, these services must provided be free using subventions from the regional budget and cannot be replaced with fee-based services.

Engel Fattakhov told about changes in parents’ fees. According to the former law “About Education” parents’ fees charged based on the total amount of expenses for child support, but not more than 20% of the total amount. According to the new law, general expenses for child support will be distributed within three categories: financial expenses for educational services (teaching staff salaries, costs of toys, teaching materials) to be paid from the regional subventions, municipal expenses to be financed by the municipalities. The third category will include expenses for child care and minding services, which will make the parents’ fees.

In particular, child care and minding expenses include costs for meals, housekeeping, medicines, as well as salaries for junior counselors, medical, catering and cleaning staff.

“Of course, the size of parents’ fees will go up, but together with that we are taking pre-school education to a new level,” Engel Fattakhov noted.