Thousands of families in Madrid have woken up this Monday with unexpected news. The Madrid City Council website has delayed the publication of the list of children from zero to three years old admitted to public infant schools. The section of the municipal portal (madrid.es) says the following: “Change in publication dates. The provisional lists will be published on May 29, 2023. The claim period will be from May 30, 2023 to June 1, 2023″. No further explanations. Coincidence or not, May 29 is next Monday, the day after the municipal and regional elections. Last year, more than 8,000 children were left without a place. Or put another way: one in three families that applied for a place in one of the 74 public schools in Madrid.
“They tell us that there has been a technical problem, which has recommended us to review all the applications in case there were any errors,” explains a spokesperson for the Families, Equality and Social Welfare area. “It’s a week late. There are usually technical issues that make it necessary to readjust the dates. Until we have the lists of all nursery schools, the provisional lists of admitted cannot be published”. The “technical” problem, points out this spokeswoman, has to do with the “scale adjustments”. “That is, checking the requirements to put points.”
The opposition sees here an electoral measure. Lucía Lois, number three on Rita Maestre’s list in the Más Madrid candidacy, has denounced her delay on her Twitter profile: “Thousands of families are today awaiting the award of public places in nursery schools . I don’t know if it’s bad management or pure electoralism. Both are shameful.” The candidate for mayor of Podemos, Roberto Sotomayor, has also released a message on his Twitter profile: “Another year Almeida leaves thousands of families without a place in nursery schools. Of course, he has delayed the publication of the lists to one day after the elections so that he does not affect him electorally. LET IT KNOW”.
Thousands of families are today awaiting the allocation of public places in nursery schools. The Almeida City Council has just delayed the publication of the lists by 1 week. I don’t know if it’s bad management or pure electoralism. Both are shameful. pic.twitter.com/8SDmccHcG5
— Lucia Lois (@lulm) May 22, 2023
The reality is that, for another year, the problem of public squares in the Madrid City Council continues to be a problem for thousands of families. On May 24, 2022, the City Council did make public the provisional list of students admitted from zero to three years for this course. Of the 12,555 families that applied for a place in the 74 municipal schools, only 4,312 got it, one in three. That is, 8,243 children were left without a public square. According to calculations by the opposition, there were 1,000 children more than the previous academic year (2021-2022).
“We are aware of the enormous demand for the network of municipal nursery schools,” says a spokesman for the Department of Families, which depends on Ciudadanos. “So far this mandate we have created nearly 800 places in seven new nursery schools. And, in addition, the next course will have three new nursery schools in the districts of Vicálvaro, San Blas-Canillejas and Villa de Vallecas, which are scheduled to open in January, and which will add 439 places”, they add.
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