Tartu suspends nursery school fee increase
Tartu City Council
/ The City Council has decided that the place fee for nursery schools will no longer be tied to the minimum wage from 2023, and will remain at the current level of EUR 81 per month.
Chairman of the City Council Tõnis Lukas: ‘Tartu is the best living environment for young families. There has only been one thing wrong with this picture so far – the nursery school place fee paid by families has been one of the highest in Estonia. We have now reached an agreement that this mistake must be corrected and we will be taking major steps starting this year to make it easy and affordable for parents to put children in nursery schools, while continuing to ensure the excellent level of nursery schools in Tartu.’
The City Council amended the regulation governing the amount of the share covered by parents as part of the financing of pre-school municipal child care institutions in the City of Tartu, and established the amount of the place fee as EUR 81 per child per month as of 1 January 2023.
The nursery school fee in the city of Tartu is currently 14 per cent of the previous year’s national minimum wage, i.e. EUR 81. Starting in 2023, the link with the minimum wage will be terminated and, as a result, the place fee will remain at the same level as it is today.
Discounts will remain in force – half of the place fee will be charged for a family’s second child attending nursery school and a family’s third child will be able to attend nursery school free of charge.
The grants for private nursery schools and childcare in Tartu are related to the volume of the budget of municipal nursery schools and the amount of the place fee. If the place fee decreases, the city will increase the base support for private child care institutions. In order to receive additional support, a private nursery school may not charge parents tuition fees that are in excess of the place fee in a municipal nursery school.
Additional information:
Deputy Mayor Lemmit Kaplinski, 736-1223, 511-8619
Chairman of the Committee of Education Lembit Kalev, 503-3388
Last changed 20.01.2022
