The first kindergarten counseling center has been opened in Georgia. The services of the KidsOffice include coaching, compliance with state standards, curriculum development, inventory support, playground arrangement, kindergarten exterior and interior design.
“Having consulting services is of significant importance during the pandemic,” Tekle Kapanadze, Founder and Director of KidsOffice said in an interview with BM.GE. Kapanadze herself has founded her own company during the pandemic and set the primary goal to assist kindergartens overcome the crisis.
“After the tightening of COVID-19 regulations in Georgia, very few private kindergartens have escaped a bankruptcy scenario. However, along with these devastating changes, new opportunities have emerged. I followed the processes through social media and saw how much it took to help private kindergarten leaders find solutions, create new services for kindergarten beneficiaries, and respond quickly to change. That is why one of the directions of our company's work has been to support the administration of kindergartens during economic and political crises, "Kapanadze told.
The main difficulties of kindergartens due to the pandemic included: rent costs, maintenance of employees, bank liabilities and maintenance of children.
“Most private gardens use leased space. This means that their operation depends on their monthly income. During pandemic those kindergartens emerged that either owned their own space or gained the landlord's favor. Also, the crisis has become difficult, but still manageable for those kindergartens that have moved the learning process to online mode and thus retained both employees and clients," said Kapanadze.
However, together with the devastating changes listed, according to the Founder and Director of KidsOffice, new opportunities have emerged. “"During the pandemic, the parents saw that the children needed developmental activities, discipline, socialization and new entertainments. They saw that they could not provide them without a kindergarten due to the busy schedule and many other worries. Consequently, the demand for kindergartens has increased. We started thinking about how and where we can take children safely and with a guarantee of positive development. As a result, one private kindergarten has been opened recently, which is in a completely open space and activities take place in nature in any weather. ”
According to Kapanadze, the restrictions imposed by the state did not allow the gardens flexibility even at a time when the risk of spreading the virus was less. "I had a reasonable suspicion that the state rulers simply found it difficult to see the importance of saving the private sector of kindergartens. In fact, it was possible to support private kindergartens in this process, at the expense of which other businesses, which employ parents of these kids, would increase productivity, "said Kapanadze.
Although the protocol for kindergartens has already been written today, it is a big question mark for Kapanadze how to manage to accept the children in the kindergarten that are having their first days there. In her words, dropping children at the entrance of the kindergarten and leaving them with a private stranger with a face mask can create much more serious and irreparable problems for the development of the children than we can imagine.
