Expanded daycare proposal announced in Porto
In an effort to provide necessary social infrastructure and retain young families, the Porto city authorities and the government are actively working to expand public daycare spaces for children up to the age of 3. This expansion forms part of broader efforts to universalize early childhood care.
Recently, the Porto City Council approved a proposal urging the government to create a public daycare network across the city. This network will identify state-owned buildings and invest in increasing daycare capacity. The move reflects concerns about the need for daycare centres, both locally and nationally [1].
At the national level, Portugal offers free daycare with full tuition relief, reimbursing providers approximately €474 per child per month, which includes meals and core activities. Despite this, there remains a significant gap between supply and demand, with long waitlists being common in high-demand areas like Lisbon, and it is likely that Porto faces a similar issue [2].
Authorities acknowledge bottlenecks due to construction delays and educator shortages, limiting the pace of expansion. However, initiatives, including those by private foundations, aim to support families and test scalable support measures for early childhood care, balancing professional and family demands [4][3].
Challenges include identifying and converting state properties in Porto for daycare use, recruiting and training sufficient qualified childcare professionals, building adequate facilities to meet growing demand, and managing long waitlists and prioritization rules that may disadvantage some demographics [1][2][4].
Joana Rodrigues, a local representative, has called for the government to identify state-owned buildings throughout the city of Porto and ensure the necessary investments to increase the number of daycare spaces. Mariana Ferreira Macedo, of the PSD, has defended the importance of daycare centres and their free provision [1].
The CDU justifies the expansion of the public daycare network with the need to combat demographic deficit. The government's approved proposal for a unanimous vote seeks to encourage and support IPSS to effectively invest in expanding the number of daycare centres. The creation of 500 new daycare places is underway [2][3].
Moreover, the government has approved a proposal to create a support line for construction projects for social solidarity institutions that provide daycare services. This support line is considered a social response under the responsibility of social security [4].
Fernando Paulo, responsible for Education and Social Cohesion, reported the government's approval of this proposal. CDU councillor Joana Rodrigues values the city's role in daycare but emphasizes the need to hold the state accountable. The city currently has one of the lowest daycare coverage relative to the resident population (35%) [1].
In summary, Porto's government is actively working with national authorities to expand public daycare spaces to achieve universal access for children under three. However, the sector faces infrastructural and workforce constraints impacting the speed and scale of this universalization effort [1][2][4].
- In addition to their focus on early childhood care, the Porto City Council and local representative Joana Rodrigues are advocating for the identification and conversion of state-owned buildings into daycare centers, with the aim of increasing daycare capacity and reducing waitlists.
- Acknowledging the importance of education-and-self-development and politics, the government's proposal to create a support line for construction projects of social solidarity institutions providing daycare services reflects a broad approach to address the gap between supply and demand in daycare services, not just in Porto but also at the general-news level nationwide.
