A few days ago, in Alcoy, several political parties met to discuss the possible implementation of a new public nursery in the city.
The debate arose when the PP, ruling party, positioned itself against building the new public nursery, it could harm private ones.
Alcoy has 11 private, four public and one concerted centers and it seems that they are enough, today, to meet the demand for places in the population. The creation of a public nursery would cause more children who are paying for a place in a private daycare center to occupy a public place in the new daycare center and that “It could put 50 jobs at serious risk” (those of the workers of the private nurseries), according to the spokesman of said political party.
This is where my question comes in: Is it ethical to refuse a public nursery so as not to harm private ones?
The ideal situation for our children is one that provides more time to live with parents. This makes me struggle and comment often that the most beneficial for them would be for maternal and paternal leave to be extended.
However, the model of raising our children, at present, mostly goes through the use of third parties or nurseries or nursery schools, since the mother returns to work, in theory, at 16 weeks after the birth of the baby .
This current model, in which mother and father work outside the home makes it necessary to use these centers and the government last year approved the Plan Educa 3, to provide free education coverage to those parents who want to make use of public nurseries and (in theory) favor work and family reconciliation.
Since the number of public nurseries is still very low, and therefore the number of places is, private nurseries are doing the job of offering their services where public services do not arrive.
There is therefore, in Spain, a large number of public and private nurseries that are working on a par for those parents who need them.
However I understand that, since the government does not do much to allow parents to raise our children in the early years of their childhood, the ideal situation would be that there were public centers for all the children of the citizens of the country (a situation that probably will never happen, seen the seen).
That is why, although 50 jobs would be in danger, rejecting the creation of a public center seems to me a real insult for the population of Alcoy and, by extension, an insult to all parents who take their children to private nurseries because they have not been granted a place in a public one.
