During the next school year 2025/2026, a total of 67,686 children aged 2 to 3 will be able to benefit from free daycare in Andalusia. This was announced Thursday in the Andalusian Parliament by the President of the Council, Juan Manuel Moreno, after declaring last September that the Andalusian administration had reached “the maximum of its financial capacities in the field of health, education and services. in the middle of a debate on the reform of regional financing.
During Thursday’s plenary session, Moreno announced that the Department of Educational Development and Professional Training had already presented to the nursery school sector the project aimed at “advancing free and progressive education” in the first cycle of education. Early Childhood Education (0 to 3 years). ), where 92,483 children are currently enrolled. Concretely, there are 48,759 two-year courses, 50% of which already have free registration. The idea for next year is to extend this bonus, hitherto applied according to income, to all families. According to sources close to the advisor, the objective is to act as a call so that the nearly 30% of parents who have not yet enrolled their children in school are encouraged to integrate them into the education system.
This announcement also comes after the Andalusian Government returned 120 million euros to the central government for the creation of 12,000 new free places in public daycare centers. The government of Juan Manuel Moreno decided to give up this money – coming from part of the European Next Generation funds – believing that it did not need more daycare centers (as many have free places).
Instead, he asked (unsuccessfully) to allocate it to subsidizing more families – as Moreno has now proposed – so they could take their children to the preschools that already existed (the vast majority – two thirds – are subsidized private schools). This newspaper requested the economic report of the recently announced measure in order to know the cost it would entail for the Ministry of Finance to subsidize the total registration fees over two years, but has not received a response so far .
Announced in the midst of the Moreno government crisis
In order to be able to subsidize the education of students from two to three years from the 2025/2026 academic year, the Council must now publish a decree and a development order which must come into force before the opening of the process of admission, scheduled for next March. Thus, the families of 67,686 boys and girls (the total enrolled at this level), who until now did not have this level of 100% subsidized education, will be able to benefit from free lessons. Free schooling begins from the second preschool cycle, corresponding to children between 3 and 6 years old.
Moreno Bonilla announced this measure at a critical moment for his government: hours after a court in Seville opened an investigation against the Andalusian Health Service (SAS) for the handpicked allocation of 243 million to clinics private within the legal framework of the system. pandemic when it was already repealed. And the opposition as a whole is aiming for the jugular of the Andalusian president for what it considers to be “the biggest corruption scandal that the PP has experienced in Andalusia in its history”.
In fact, the popular leader made known his proposal for free entry for children from two years old, in turn to respond to the spokesperson for Por Andalucía, Inmaculada Nieto, who asked for “explanations” on the reports of intervention, revealed by elDiario. .es, who accuse the Board of Directors of having sorted 458 million euros by sharing hundreds of minor contracts “in fraud of the law”, and that the Andalusian PSOE announced that it would file a complaint.
“We want to talk about important things, that’s what really interests the citizen,” the Andalusian president responded to Nieto, adding that “if you want to talk about things that really matter to Andalusians, about problems, that’s not okay.” here”. “to never find a president who says no, because there are problems that explode every day, and we work hard and give everything to find solutions to them,” said Moreno, who attended this plenary session with a speech prepared to refute what has been said. the opposition has already dubbed it “the SAS plot”.
