Due to the demographic crisis, the number of students in Riga's kindergartens has significantly decreased, leading to the consideration of reforming or even closing dozens of municipal kindergartens, reports TV3.
There are few children because there are few parents born in the harsh 1990s. Back then, due to poverty, birth rates sharply declined. Today, Latvia is facing a secondary wave of a shortage of young people.
The kindergartens built for a 2.5 million republic predictably did not reach full capacity in a country with a population of 1.8 million.
Currently, there are over 150 municipal kindergartens operating in Riga; however, as noted by the Riga City Council, not all of them are fully occupied. The municipality is considering optimizing the network of kindergartens. Various scenarios are being discussed, from merging institutions to closing them. The local government acknowledges that the current number of institutions no longer corresponds to the actual demand.
"Since 2016, the number of newborns in Riga has decreased by 50%. This is a sharper decline than in Latvia as a whole. This is reflected in kindergartens and schools," noted local deputy Elina Treija.
"There are individual places where the cost per child exceeds one thousand euros," complained the chairwoman of the Education Committee of the Riga City Council, Laima Geikina.
As admitted by Riga Mayor Viesturs Kleinbergs, there are areas where the occupancy of kindergartens is only 60–70%. "In the future, we will have to make decisions and assess where it may be possible to close," said the mayor.
On Monday, the first working meeting was held at the council, where the optimization of the kindergarten network was discussed. It is not yet revealed how many and which specific institutions may be affected by the changes; however, whispers in the corridors suggest that it could involve several dozen kindergartens, reports TV3.
The municipality promises to implement the optimization by September, with the start of the new school year.
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