PRE-PRIMARY EDUCATION Pre-Primary Education is offered by education-oriented kindergartens for children from three years to five years and eight months. For children younger than three, there are day nurseries which are not considered to be schools. Their responsibilities are the care and protection of children, rather than education, and for this reason the day nurseries come under the remit of the Ministry of Labour and Social Insurance and not the Ministry of Education and Culture. All kindergartens and day nurseries are co-educational. There are no organisations in Cyprus that would come under the category of education-oriented, nonschool institutions. There are currently three different types of kindergarten institutions: public, community and private.
Public kindergartens Children from four years and eight months to five years and eight months are accepted in public kindergartens. Additionally, children who attain the age of three before 1 September may enrol if there are sufficient free places. Public kindergartens are established by the Ministry of Education and Culture in cooperation with the parents’ association and the local authority for the area where the school is situated. The teaching personnel are appointed by the Education Service Commission and the government subsidises the equipment and covers the running expenses, the construction and maintenance of school buildings and the remuneration of any assistants. In 2008/09 there were two hundred and fifty-three (253) public kindergartens in operation in Cyprus.
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