Around 40,000 children aged three to four in the Czech Republic are not attending kindergarten, according to a report by PAQ Research.
The reasons for this vary, including a lack of available spots, social issues like segregation, and parental decisions. This situation affects not only major cities such as Prague, Brno, and Ostrava, but also regions like Karlovy Vary and Ústí nad Labem.
Karel Gargulak, an analyst at PAQ Research, explained that while some areas lack the infrastructure to accommodate these children, it is not a case of kindergartens being “full” everywhere. In certain municipalities, there simply aren’t enough spaces due to financial constraints, the labor-intensive process of building new facilities, and lengthy permit procedures.
The shortage is particularly pronounced around major cities like Prague, Brno, and Plzeň, where young families are relocating but the capacity to build new kindergartens is limited. For example, in Nový Knín in the Central Bohemian Region, a previous analysis found a shortage of 32 kindergarten spots, leaving 64% of local three- and four-year-olds without access to education. Similarly, in Statenice (Prague-West), 54% of children were not attending kindergarten, with a high number of them missing out entirely.
In some cases, parents are left with no choice but to seek alternative solutions. Petra from Gračištěk, also in Prague-West, shared her experience: “They didn’t want to take our daughter into kindergarten at three years old because they didn’t have any places. In the end, she was almost at the bottom of the list of children who had applied.” To enable her to work, the family paid for a private kindergarten in a nearby village at 500 CZK per day until they secured a place in a municipal kindergarten when their daughter was over three and a half years old.
