The Ministry of Education has redistributed among seven autonomous communities – four governed by the PP and three by the PSOE – part of the almost 120 million euros that Andalusia received for the creation of public places in the first cycle of early childhood, and which it renounced.
The government of Juan Manuel Moreno decided to return this money – part of the European Next Generation funds – considering that it did not need more nurseries (as many have free places), and asked (unsuccessfully) to allocate it to subsidize more families to take their children to the schools that already existed.
It was a problem of management model. The Ministry of Education distributed these funds among the communities to build free public nurseries, but in Andalusia – since the socialist era – the vast majority of nursery schools (two thirds) are subsidized private schools, and the Commission subsidizes families according to their level of income to be able to educate their children from 0 to 3 years old.
Accepting this money, they say at the Ministry of Educational Development, would mean triggering a fight between public companies and private companies, mainly small and medium-sized enterprises, and jeopardizing a sector that employs 16,000 people, almost all of them women.
This Tuesday, the Council of Ministers approved the redistribution of 32.2 million euros – of the 112 million received by Andalusia – among seven communities that requested more funds to expand their network of free public nurseries.
Specifically, the funds are distributed among Aragon, Asturias, Castile and León, Comunitat Valenciana, Madrid, Murcia and Navarra, which have expressed their willingness to receive more funding under the programme to promote enrolment in the first cycle of preschool education with new places, mainly for girls and boys aged 1 and 2, which is part of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Programme.
The Minister of Education and government spokesperson, Pilar Alegría, criticized in the press conference after the Council of Ministers the “express resignation” of the executive of Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla to the funds, thus harming, she said, 12,000 Andalusian families who could have enjoyed these places.
The communities that will benefit from the resignation of Andalusia do not share a model of management of nursery schools nor do they support the school population of this community. Madrid, for example, has a marked deficit in the provision of the first cycle of early childhood education; Castilla y León has a problem of geographical dispersion and depopulation… However, all of them, whether from the PP or the PSOE, have accepted the conditions of the program to receive European funds, namely: the creation of free public places.
When this program was announced, in 2021, Andalusia was governed by a PP-Ciudadanos coalition executive. One of the reasons why the money paid at the time was abandoned was also related to the availability of the budget. The Council was concerned that if it accepted the funds now, once the initial allocation had been exhausted, it would have to preserve these 12,000 new public places for children from its own budget and integrate them into the structure of the system, something it categorically refused.
Andalusia has created a thousand places out of the 12,000 entered
The approved redistribution corresponds to the funds reinstated by the Moreno Executive, which of the 12,069 places for which it received funding only plans to create 1,040, reports the ministry. The amount not executed by this community (just over 112 million euros of the 120 million received) was reimbursed and part was allocated to cover the needs of the autonomous communities mentioned above.
The remaining amount of the aforementioned reimbursement (just over 80 million euros) is reserved for a new redistribution between the autonomous communities and other departments (such as the Ministry of Defense, to create nursery schools in the barracks), and will be allocated, until the end of 2025, to the creation of more public places from 0 to 3 years old. Sources from the ministry explain that there is no problem in transferring the funds to other departments (Defense, in this case), since they have an educational objective and they will be public places agreed with the Ministry of Education.
The Andalusian Government renounced the European funds, then rectified them, tried to respect the creation of places committed by urging the town halls to open municipal nursery schools, but finally returned a large part of the money allocated. By accepting the European funds, the Commission committed to offering each year – over the three years of the programme – 4,000 new public and free places, in addition to the 123,590 subsidised paying places that already exist in the 2,143 nursery schools in Andalusia.
Most of them belong to private owners, agreed by the Board of Directors; and 770 are public: 170 of autonomous property and 550 of other administrations (town halls, associations of municipalities…). 50% of schoolchildren, or about 45,000 children, pay nothing, because their income level is so low that they receive a total bonus on the price of the place and the dining room: 320.71 euros per month.
The enrollment rate in the first cycle of kindergarten is around 48% of the population from 0 to 3 years old, but “there are 52% who do not go to school because they cannot pay a significant amount for any family economy,” explained the deputy. The Minister of Education, María del Carmen Castillo, was recently appointed advisor in the second Moreno government, replacing Patricia del Pozo, who was the one who signed the definitive waiver of subsidies for daycare centers.
