Parents of children attending the after-school service Klabb 3-16 will have to contend with less flexible pickup times, the Education Ministry has confirmed.
The change, announced by SMS last week, left many parents frustrated, since it will introduce set hourly times for when children can be picked up from the centres.
Klabb 3-16 is an after-school care service for students intended to bridge the gap between school closing times and the time that parents finish work. The service, run by the Foundation for Educational Services (FES), is offered in 30 State primary schools across Malta and Gozo up to 6pm.
Before now, children could be picked up at any time, and the service came at a nominal fee.
However, irate parents who contacted this newspaper complained that the new system would curb flexibility and give rise to difficulties, especially if children had to attend other activities.
According to the first SMS sent to parents by FES on November 7, the rigid hourly dismissal times starting at 3.30pm had to start being implemented two days later. However, parents received a second SMS 24 hours later informing them that the proposed dismissal times would be communicated by the respective centre coordinators “in due time”.
“I do my best to pick up my son at the earliest possible from Klabb 3-16, but the earliest I can do that now will be 3.30pm, which makes no sense,” a frustrated parent told this newspaper.
The Klabb 3-16 service is not a babysitting service
“If I miss the 4.30pm deadline by 10 minutes, I will have to wait until 5.30pm before I can collect my daughter,” another parent complained.
The Education Ministry defended the new system, insisting that FES was working hard to inject “more substance” in the provision of these programmes.
“The Klabb 3-16 service is not a babysitting service but aims to offer a proper educational and holistic values-based experience to students,” a ministry spokeswoman said.
She said that the foundation had introduced a new programme but it failed to give the desired outcome, because thefre was structure in place.
“Thus over the next weeks, Klabb 3-16 will be introducing a number of improved educational sessions, and this means that parents have to wait until the sessions are finished to pick up their children,” she said.
With reference to difficulties this will cause to some parents, the spokeswoman said the FES had “a dialogue open” with those who expressed an issue with the decreased flexibility.
“The FES is committed to continue its approach to dialogue with all working parents to find the best balance for children, their ever-increasing extra-curricular commitments and the heavy schedule of the parents themselves without sacrificing the educational quality of the service,” the spokeswoman said.
This newspaper knows of parents who were informed by the respective centre coordinators that once the dismissal times came into force, they would have to be enforced.
The government invested €1.3 million in Klabb 3-16 this year and has allocated €1.6 million for 2017.