160 nurseries were promised and 29 were opened.

Opening 160 kindergartens was the Government's objective for the previous mandate. However, only 29 of them have been opened. There are a total of 65 public preschool institutions in Kosovo, for which education experts say the quality of the services they provide remains unclear.

In the last five years, 29 new preschool institutions have been opened in Kosovo.

Of these, 12 new nurseries have been built by the Ministry of Education, while 11 schools have been adapted into nurseries for children. Last year alone, 6 nurseries were built with funding from the European Union through the IPA 2016 program.

However, this number remains much lower than the 160 envisaged in the government program.

The Ministry of Education and Science (MES) blamed the municipalities for failing to meet this objective.

"The main reason is the lack of locations and construction permits from the respective municipalities for the new nurseries planned in the budget law because the Ministry currently has planned in the budget law the construction of 28 other new nurseries as well as 4 adaptations of schools into nurseries. Currently, 27 new nurseries are contracted and under construction, and 5 schools into nurseries are in the process of being adapted with investments from MASTI," the ministry's response states.

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There are a total of 65 public preschool institutions in Kosovo, of which 41 are parent facilities, while 24 function as separate parallels.

Hanë Zylfiu-Hazirit, who is a project manager at the Kosovo Education Center (KEC), says that this number remains insufficient in the face of the growing demand for kindergartens.

"This does not cover the demand and needs that are presented both by parents for their children to be included in preschool institutions, but also by what municipalities offer more. Preschool education is much more important for young children, especially for the age several years before the start of schooling," said Zylfiu-Haziri.

She emphasizes that the quality of services provided in existing nurseries also remains unclear, as there are no special inspectors who deal only with preschool institutions.

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"Now we need to talk about what we are offering to those children? Is there quality in those classes? Is an adequate program offered, despite the fact that we have the curriculum, but how prepared are the educators? Or are we sometimes even replicating the first grade?", said Zylfiu-Haziri. "We do not have a system that controls what is offered in that 'beautiful' environment."

According to statistics from the Ministry of Education for the 2024-2025 school year, 678 female and 4 male educators are employed in preschool institutions in Kosovo.