Project guarantees place in daycare close to home

Close to family is always better. This is the main characteristic of the project approved, this Monday (23), by the Social Security, Social Assistance, Childhood, Adolescence and Family Committee of the Chamber of Deputies, which guarantees the right to a place in daycare centers, public preschools or elementary schools, located close to the residence or work of the parents/guardians of the children.

In addition to setting criteria for priority in enrollment, if it is impossible to meet all applicants, the proposal changes the Child and Adolescent Statute (ECA) and the National Education Education Guidelines and Bases Law (LDB), setting criteria for priority in enrollment, if all requirements are not met. requests.

Currently, the LDB guarantees a place for children from the age of four at the school closest to their residence, but does not make reference to the guardians' place of work. The ECA, in turn, clearly emphasizes that it is the State's duty to provide children (between zero and five years old) with daycare and pre-school care.

The approved text was the substitute of the rapporteur, deputy Romero Rodrigues (Podemos-PB), for PL 2914/19, by licensed deputy Célio Silveira (GO), and the attached ones (PLs 764/23 and 3982/23).

“Despite legal advances, demand sometimes exceeds the capacity to serve, preventing, in practice, many children from accessing the right to education, especially those belonging to low-income and vulnerable families”, points out the project rapporteur, deputy Romero Rodrigues.

In Rodrigues' opinion, the ideal solution is to universalize places and ensure that children study close to home. “Until this goal is reached, it is essential to establish service priorities”, he commented.

According to the project, priority will be given to:

• Children whose family is registered in the Single Registry for Social Programs of the Federal Government (CadÚnico);
• Children away from family life, including those in institutional care;
• Children without the name of their father or mother in the civil registry and those whose parents do not participate in the care provided to them;
• Children with fathers, mothers or guardians enrolled in the public education network;
• Children with fathers, mothers or legal guardians who can prove an employment relationship or work relationship;
• Children in situations of social vulnerability, including those whose mothers have a protective measure due to domestic or family violence;
• Children living in socially vulnerable communities;
• Children at nutritional risk;
• Children whose mothers are teenagers.

Among the tiebreaker criteria, the substitute gives preference to the child with the longest time registered in the place request register, with the lowest per capita family income.