Access to pre-school education has always been a problem for the four settlements of the Karazhal ayil aymak, there was only one kindergarten in the village of Boz-Bulun functioning in a specially adapted building.
“Until today only forty children could attend the kindergarten, while the need was for 80 children. Preparation of children for school and improving the quality of education services were the issues, constantly raised at general meetings and public hearings by the residents”- says Venera Zhumabayeva, the director of the pre-school institution, and a member of the initiative group. – In the framework of the Public Service Improvement Project financed by the Government of Switzerland through the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and implemented by Helvetas and the Development Policy Institute our initiative group, together with the Ail Okmotu, developed an Action Plan to improve the services of pre-school education, and calculated the total amount required, which was 6.5 million soms. By participating in the Grant Program of the Public Service Improvement Project we won a 4 million som grant to improve the pre-school education service, and 2.5 million soms were allocated by the Issyk-Kul Development Fund. With these funds, an additional building, a kitchen with a dining room, an outdoor playground and a kindergarten fence were built. In addition, we purchased equipment and other furniture for 40 children, and now we can accept two additional groups. Our district education department has already agreed on additional staff with the Ministry of Education. Aiyl okmotu plans to increase the allocated funds for the maintenance of our kindergarten, we are grateful to our Aiyl okmotu and donors for their help”- continued Venera Zhumabayeva.
Village resident and a member of the joint monitoring and evaluation group Mambetov Ernis says, “In our village, the pre-school institution had the possibility to accept up to forty children, whereas there was a need for eighty children in the village. And in order to enroll a child in the kindergarten, residents had to look for influential people. And since there were no available places anyway, they rarely could ever enroll children, hence a widespread perception has existed that there was corruption. Now the kindergarten was expanded and can provide service to everyone. Moreover, we discussed the procedure for accepting children at a public hearing, and now we have adopted the Regulation on the admission of children to kindergarten”.
“Before we had to take the children to the city of Karakol in order to prepare them to school, since there were few places in the preschool institution. At the same time, this greatly influenced the family budget, since the funds were spent on transportation services, for a fee to an educational institution or tutor, and most importantly, it took our time. My husband works in the household, and I work in an educational institution in the city of Karakol. Now when children are enrolled to kindergarten, we have more free time and children get affordable quality education” mentioned Dinara Askerbekova, a resident of the village.