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Two million Russian children on kindergarten waiting list

The task is to solve the problem with kindergartens by 2016

MOSCOW, June 19 (Itar-Tass) - The problem of kindergartens remains acute in Russia, where two million children are on the kindergarten waiting list at the moment, the deputy head of the department for demographic policy and social protection of the population at the Labor Ministry, Yelena Strakhova, told a conference on Wednesday.

“The situation with kindergartens is extremely serious,” the official stated. “The Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat) shows that the kindergarten waiting list keeps getting longer and makes up two million children at the moment,” she added.

Strakhova reminded the audience that the task had been set to solve that problem by the year 2016, and also stressed that the situation with children under the age of three also needs to be looked into.

“This is connected with the fact that many women get back to work earlier, and the problem emerges where to send the child,” she said. She appealed to Russian regions to look into that situation.

“The research shows that our population is oriented towards having two children. This must be supported and conditions must be created for this trend to be realized,” Strakhova noted.

“The family must get sizable material support when children are born,” she believes. According to her, apart from financial support and kindergartens, the housing problem is of tremendous importance.

“We must acknowledge that the housing is a very costly thing in our country,” she emphasized. “The incomes of the population are insufficient, particularly this concerns young families and families having many children,” she added.

“Housing rent must be developed,” she believes, as “this is more affordable and topical for young families”.

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