The pre-school education is not necessary requirement for admission of a child to the first grade, education minister Dmytro Tabachnyk told a briefing, ForUm correspondent reports.
"This year we managed to cover 87% of children aged 3 to 6 years with pre-schools. In 2009 the figure was 53%," Tabachnyk said.
The minister also added that almost all five-year-old children received pre-school education in kindergartens. The coverage with such education this year is 99.8%. However, he stressed that the concept of "early childhood education" covers not only visits to kindergarten, but other types of pre-school education, including classes with grandparents having teacher education.
Tabachnyk said that lack of formal pre-school education is not a barrier for admission for the first grade as kindergartens do not issue any certificates and a school cannot require a document of completion of pre-school educational institutions.
Thus, the law on compulsory pre-school education in 2010 was passed to make local authorities allocate funds for the construction and renewal of the kindergartens, the minister said.
