The total number of kindergarten children is rising, the share in the age-group is decreasing

Earlier the share of children attending preschool institutions increased both among nursery-school and kindergarten children, but during the previous three-four years the rise of the share has stopped. In 2007, 67% of children aged 1–6 attended kindergartens and 86% of children aged 3–6. In 2007, 10% of all 1-year-old children attended nursery schools or baby groups at kindergartens — three percentage points less than five years earlier. On the one hand the decrease has been caused by parental wages, on the other hand by the shortage of vacancies in nursery schools.

In spite of the great demand for vacancies in preschool institutions caused by increasing birth-rate, the number of preschool institutions has increased only by seven during the last five years — from 597 to 604. Therefore, more and more children are waiting for vacancies in kindergartens. At the end of 2007, about 30,000 children were registered for the vacancies in preschool institutions, five years the respective figure was 14,000.

482 preschool institutions worked in Estonian, 70 in Russian, 50 in both languages. In two preschool institutions the language of instruction was English. There were 27,600 girls and 29,300 boys in preschool institutions in 2007. This proportion is in general similar to the ratio of the number of boys and girls in the same age-group. 42,000 children participated in pre-primary education in urban areas and 15,000 in rural areas.

Pre-primary education, 2003–2007
(at the end of the year)