Public Defender publishes special monitoring report of preschool institutions
By Khatia Bzhalava
Thursday, September 10
On September 9th, 2020, the Public Defender of Georgia, Nino Lomjaria presented a special report on the Results of the Monitoring Carried out in Preschool Educational Institutions. The report was prepared with the help of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), within the framework of a project – Strengthening the Capacity of the Center for the Rights of Children and reflects the result of the monitoring of the rights situation of children in preschool institutions of Georgia.
Preschool institutions were checked in the following regards: infrastructural condition; food; sanitation- hygiene; healthcare; violence against children; human resources.
According to the statement published by Public Defender, to examine the situation in preschool institutions and compliance with national and international standards of protection of the rights of children, 143 kindergartens were monitored in Tbilisi as well as other cities of Georgia, villages, and towns, including mountainous regions of Georgia.
The monitoring has revealed improvement of the situation compared with the results of monitoring carried out in 2014 by Public Defender, mainly in the direction of healthy and balanced food, as well as special nutrition needs. However, public defender notes that despite the operations implemented by the state and the municipalities, there are still issues in kindergartens, which demand more effort from the relevant structures.
According to Amy Clancy, UNICEF Deputy Representative in Georgia, despite the adoption of national standards in 2017, monitoring of preschool institutions revealed that many such institutions do not have the necessary safe internal or external infrastructure, water, sanitation, and hygiene conditions to assure well-being and development of children.
"These issues are even more problematic in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and they could serve as additional barriers to access to pre-school education," she said.
The statement reads that the challenges detected as a result of monitoring mostly refer to the infrastructure of the institutions, educational items, and arrangement of yards. There are also problems in relation to the lack of qualified employees and overcrowding.
According to the report, the trends identified as a result of the monitoring are the following:
Due to insufficient space, the needs of children are limited, especially in kindergartens located in non-standard buildings; kindergartens are not fully adapted to the needs of children with disabilities and are not able to ensure their full involvement; in the vast majority of kindergartens, yards are not arranged in accordance to the needs and safety of children; lack of equipment, which is especially acute with regard to bedrooms, classrooms and dining rooms; kindergartens are rarely provided with toys relevant to the age and number of children; bathrooms are not arranged in accordance to the needs of children and especially children with disabilities. Space and furniture do not correspond to the number of children. additionally, in some kindergartens bathrooms are not provided with hot water; the majority of teachers have not been trained in child abuse issues, which deters detection and timely response to the acts of violence; 34% of inspected kindergartens have children with disabilities, but only 14.2% of them have a position of a special teacher; geographical accessibility is a problem as well. children are transported to nearby kindergartens only in 75% of the villages.
The Public Defender hopes that the recommendation developed in response to the results of the monitoring will be considered by the relevant authorities.
The findings of the survey were presented by Maia Gedevanishvili, Head of the Department of the Rights of the Child of the Public Defender's Office, and Lika Gvinjilia, a member of the monitoring group.
