Patricia Hernández, candidate for Mayor of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, is committed to tripling the number of public centers in the municipality with the creation of 4 new municipal centers. She thus confirmed it this morning at a press conference before the doors of the municipal children’s center, Faina, in Ofra.
Currently, there are only two municipally owned centers, one in Añaza (Tara) and another in the Ofra district (Faina), bringing the total supply to 140 places for a municipality whose population exceeds 200,000 inhabitants. “It is not understood that Las Palmas has 1,200, La Laguna with 155,000 inhabitants has 244 places, La Orotava with 42,000 has 205, Guía de Isora with 21,000 citizens and 192 places, El Rosario with 17,000 and 163 or La Matanza that does not arrive to 10,000 and offers almost the same places as our municipality,” said Hernández, adding that “in the last 12 years of Bermúdez’s tenure, no kindergarten has opened.”
According to the latest data published by the INE, the child population in the municipality is 7,000 boys and girls, which means that the ratio is 2 places for every 100 children in Santa Cruz, compared to Guía de Isora with a ratio of 21 for every 100 or La Matanza with 33 per 100. “We are in the tail, the families have been forgotten by the Bermúdez team, which has not taken this demand into account,” he added.
There are numerous studies that support that education at an early age is essential for the later educational development of minors, especially in vulnerable environments. An educational tool that allows boys and girls to reach later stages with skills in reading, mathematics or comprehension, among other abilities. In this line, Hernández stressed its importance as a tool that contributes with families to the comprehensive development of the little ones and that goes beyond the assistance nature that nursery schools had been having.
The candidate announced that she already has municipal spaces located in areas such as Los Verodes – Los Gladiolos, Miramar, currently closed, the upper part of the southwestern district and La Salud, in addition to working to locate a space in Anaga. “But that is only the first step ─he pointed out ─ because our idea is not to stay here, we will go more in the long term because we are aware that not everyone can access a private space and also that prices are rising before the current shortage.
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