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Nursery Schools May Be Closed In Akhaltsikhe District

January 31, 2007

pupe.gifGovernesses from the nursery schools in the Akhaltsikhe district have worked without salaries for four months. Representatives of the local government stated that they could not fund the organization which does not exist legally.

Tako Beridze has two children. She is unemployed, her husband worked as a driver for the Baku-Tbilisi-Jeyhan pipe-line. However, he also got unemployed because the project was finished. The family does not have any income now. As a result, their children may not go to the nursery again.

“People from nursery schools say that fees will be increased as the state budget will not fund them anymore. Although I think nursery school is very important for a child, I do not know what I will do in future,” said Tako.

“The governess has a salary of just 25 lari and now they cannot get it either. We have been working without payment for so long time,” said Guliko Nadibaidze, a governess of the nursery school #1.

Nowadays, there are nine nursery schools in the Akhaltsikhe District. Eight of them are in Akhaltsikhe and the one is in Vale. Every year, the schools were funded with 700-800 GEL from the local budget.

Sergo Fareishvili, the head of the Legal Service Department of the President’s Representative to the Region, said that a nursery school is not a legal entity. It was set up neither by the Ministry of Education nor by the local government. According to him, the nursery schools were not registered at the Ministry of Justice. Thus, they cannot be funded with the state budget.

“There have never been legal nursery schools in the town.  They were functioning de-facto. It is not necessary to establish them at all. It is possible to create a service department of the local education and culture, where the staff of those nursery schools and other similar organizations will be employed on various positions,” said Fareishvili.

Nobody speaks about those governesses who worked without payment for four months. The government has found out a resolution of the problem.

“Nursery schools should turn to internal financing. The Municipality Budget will assist only four categories-children of disabled parents of the first group, orphans, and children of large families and of war participants. As for the fees, the board of the nursery schools should estimate them,” said Iuri Zaridze, the chief of the Sport, Culture and Monument Protection Service Department within the Akhaltsikhe Municipality.

The governesses say that at least 1, 5 lari a day is necessary to feed the child properly, it amounts to 45 lari a month. Besides that, the fees should include the salaries for governesses as well as communal expenses. Finally, parents will have to pay quite a large fee-nearly 60 or 70 lari a month. Unemployed parents and those who work for only 100 or 120 GEL a month, will not be able to afford the nursery school fee.

Gulo Kokhodze, Akhaltsikhe

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