The Ministry of Education of the Government of the Canary Islands has announced that six educational centers in Lanzarote will incorporate places from 0 to 3 years old during the next school year. The chosen municipalities are Arrecife, San Bartolomé, Tinajo and Playa Blanca.
Education will implement the first Cycle of Early Childhood Education of the Archipelago, after the pilot project. Of the 99 educational centers that will have this possibility, six are on the island of Lanzarote. The chosen spaces are: In Arrecife, the CEIP Adolfo Topham, Nieves Toledo; in San Bartolomé, Ajei and Playa Honda; in Tinajo, Guiguan; and in Yaiza, Playa Blanca.
For the moment, the Area of the Government of the Canary Islands has only informed that the centers of Ajei and Playa Honda will have 18 places each. In addition, the incorporation of this cycle will be effective in the coming days after its publication in the Official Gazette of the Canary Islands.
Those interested may apply for a school place in the educational centers according to the admission procedure of the students foreseen by the Ministry of Education for the next course and the calendar proposed for that academic year, which can be consulted on the website of the Ministry.
Strategic plan
For the implementation of these classrooms, one of the actions included in the Strategic Plan of the First Cycle of Early Childhood Education (0-3 years), the Canary Islands Government has carried out works with the aim of adapting the classrooms and converting them, thus, "into spaces that enhance learning, and new teaching staff has been appointed and other non-teaching professional profiles have been hired", reads the statement issued by Education.
The regional Executive will create, within the framework of this Plan, 3,879 places from 0 to 3 years old, so that for the 2024/25 academic year the Archipelago will have 9,369 public places in its educational centers and municipal infant schools.
The centers that have these new classrooms have been selected after an analysis of each of the municipalities of the Autonomous Community of the Canary Islands and the assessment of the pre-existing offer, both in public and private centers, in order to detect the needs in early schooling and respond to it. All this under the design of a model of implementation of units of this progressive and flexible cycle.
The regional minister of the area, Manuela Armas, explained that this initiative seeks to extend the right to a school place "accessible, affordable and inclusive to all girls and boys in the Canary Islands under three years of age". "This is the best way to compensate for the effects of inequalities of economic, social, territorial and cultural origin that hinder their integral development," she added.
The head of the department also stressed that schooling at these ages allows the early detection and attention of learning and developmental difficulties, and is one of the best ways to promote the improvement of results and future educational performance. Likewise, the work-life balance of families and the access of women to the labor market are also directly favored with the universalization of the Early Childhood Education cycle.
Strategic Plan for the First Cycle of Early Childhood Education in the Canary Islands
The offer of places in schools dependent on the Ministry of Education and the creation of new places in municipal Infant Schools are two of the measures contemplated in the Strategic Plan for the first cycle of Early Childhood Education in the Canary Islands (0-3 years) of the Government of the Canary Islands.
The objective of this initiative is to increase public places to reach 40% of the net enrollment rate of these ages in the 2024-25 academic year, and its approval is both a mandate of the Canary Islands Law of Non-University Education and a Government objective, which coincides with the impulse that this educational stage has wanted to give to the Organic Law of Modification of the Organic Law of Education (LOMLOE), in addition to being an objective of the Canary Islands Agenda 2030.
One of the purposes of this instrument is the improvement of the enrollment rate in the Infant Schools of municipal ownership through an instrument of cooperation with the town councils, for which management and shared financing formulas are established. For this administrative collaboration there is a framework agreement with the Canary Islands Federation of Municipalities (FECAM) and specific agreements with local corporations. Consequently, the Ministry assumes the financing of between 33.3% and 66.6% of the fee paid by families for a place in municipal schools, depending on the different income levels of these.
