Mom is busy: why parents are increasingly choosing private kindergartens
The commercial sector is becoming increasingly important in the field of preschool education. The demand for private kindergartens in Russia has more than doubled. Interest in babysitter services is also growing. This trend is not a random fluctuation of the market, but the result of a collision of several powerful socio-economic factors. However, according to experts, such dynamics do not indicate a crisis in the public sector. Why parents are increasingly entrusting their children to private companies rather than the state is in the Izvestia article.
Go for takeoff
In the first half of 2026, the demand for private kindergartens in Russia more than doubled (compared to the same period last year). This is evidenced by the results of the Avito Services study (available from Izvestia). The demand for babysitter services is also growing, with such specialists becoming 6% more likely to be contacted. At the same time, there was an increased interest in the format in which the child is on the specialist's territory (+75%).
Parents delegate to other people not only the supervision of the child during working hours, but also the escort along the routes of movement. The demand for specialists who can take a child to or from kindergarten increased by 66% and 60%, respectively. And 68% more often they started looking for an assistant who would take the baby to the section or circle. Parents pay special attention to car drivers who can take their child to an educational institution in another area (+66%). The demand for specialists looking after a child during a walk has also increased (+61%).
The growing interest of Russians in the commercial sector naturally raises the question of whether such a trend is a signal of problems in public preschool institutions. It's no secret that queues at municipal kindergartens have been a serious headache for parents for many years. However, in recent years, the situation has begun to change — the availability of preschool education in Russia is now quite high. For children under three years of age in 2025, according to Rosstat, it was 99.5%.
The government focuses not only on the work of existing kindergartens, but also on the construction of new preschool institutions. According to Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin, a total of 38 kindergartens have been completed in the country since 2022.
However, the number of places in preschool varies significantly depending on the region. In the Moscow Region (where, according to Avito Services, interest in private kindergartens has increased fivefold), there were 102 children per 100 places in 2025. For comparison, in the Magadan region, the figure is only 69 children.
Anyway, the problem of lack of places in municipal institutions is not as acute now as it used to be, says Sofya Timofeeva, an expert on the development of private education in Russia. And the fact that the authorities pay close attention to checking that kindergartens comply with sanitary standards makes the citizens' trust in them enormous.
— But the public sector primarily eliminates the need for supervision and care. If a mother wants something exclusive, she will go to the private sector," the Izvestia interlocutor notes.
Fostering individuality
Modern moms and dads really increasingly need not just a person who provides supervision and care for a child during the working day, but a full-fledged companion in parenting who will take on some of the traditionally parental functions.
According to Ivan Sorokin, founder of the NGO "Platform for the Development of the Institute of Family and Childhood", founder of the Smile Fish network of private kindergartens, several factors influence the growth of demand, the main of which is the information environment.
— The Internet and social networks have formed a steady parenting trend: moms and dads see how other families take their children to the piano, football, speech therapy, chess, mental arithmetic, robotics. There is a natural request: just to send a child to kindergarten and pick him up in the evening is no longer enough. Parents want every hour of their child's stay outside the home to be filled with meaning and development. That's why they turn to private specialists in search of quality, an individual approach and an environment that really works for the child," the expert explains.
Sofya Timofeeva also connects the growing demand for private specialists with the abundance of information that has overwhelmed parents in the digital age. First of all, we are talking about the impact on women, because most often it is they who make the decision on what methods the child will develop. And modern mothers receive a lot of different, often contradictory information on this issue, getting into a real information storm.
— In order to get information about an approach earlier, it was necessary to go to a bookstore, find the right book, buy it and read it. Now you can watch rils, which will tell you the information you need in 30 seconds. As a result, women have requests that cannot close state kindergartens," explains the editorial interlocutor.
And this does not mean that there is something wrong with state preschool institutions, the specialist emphasizes. It's just that now they don't always cover the needs of a particular woman — by choosing a method of raising her child, the mother ends up looking for either a private garden or a nanny who will work in accordance with her preferences.
The advantage of private kindergartens in the eyes of parents is the small number of groups (6-15 people each), which allows for an individual approach to each child. In government institutions, groups tend to be twice as large.
Among the advantages, it is also possible to single out the mode of operation — private organizations are often open until late at night or around the clock, which gives parents more flexibility.
Sometimes the choice in favor of the private sector is made because of objective administrative barriers, Ivan Sorokin adds. For example, a family has moved to another city and has not yet registered, but the child already needs to be placed somewhere because the parents are going to work. In this case, the state kindergarten will not accept the child, so there is essentially no choice but to apply to the private sector.
However, a significant part of families still come to commercial organizations consciously, and not under the influence of circumstances, the expert says. In some cases, this is due to the fact that the social infrastructure does not always keep up with the pace of construction of residential buildings. There may not be a public preschool in the immediate vicinity of the house yet. At the same time, parents want to leave the entrance and be at the garden door after a hundred meters, no one wants to take a small child through the whole area or stand in traffic jams.
— Besides, and this is perhaps the most important thing, people read reviews and study their reputation. You can build a garden with modern renovation and new furniture, but if the caregivers do not like children and suffer in their work, no walls will help. When a parent pays, they have the right to demand. He chooses a teacher, gets to know him personally, and controls the quality," the Izvestia interlocutor emphasizes.
The opportunity to influence the conditions of a child's stay is one of the reasons why parents choose a private kindergarten, confirms Sofya Timofeeva. In this case, adults can enter the group and inspect everything, give some recommendations, buy something or offer something. And for some parents, this opportunity is very important.
I can afford it
At the same time, it is worth noting that historically, the number of children attending private kindergartens in Russia has not been that high. By the end of 2023, according to the statistical collection "Indicators of Education" prepared by the Higher School of Economics, there were 32 thousand preschool educational institutions in the Russian Federation. In total, about 6.7 million children stayed in them, of which only 105 thousand attended private organizations.
The main reason for this gap was the high cost of services in commercial kindergartens. Every month a child visits a private institution costs tens of thousands of rubles, which not every family could afford.
The situation was reversed by the shortage of personnel in the economy. The salary race in recent years has led to an increase in household incomes, making private sector services accessible to more families. Employers strive to bring experienced employees back to the labor market as soon as possible by offering flexible working conditions and increased pay, so for some women it is more profitable to focus on work by entrusting the care of a child to private specialists.
The economic growth of recent years has allowed many families to switch to more conscious consumer behavior in matters of child education, so private kindergartens may well become the norm for the middle class in the future, confirms Ivan Sorokin.
"People are willing to pay for quality — for a trusted caregiver, for an environment where the child will be safe and happy to develop," the expert notes.
However, family wealth is still not a determining factor when choosing between a public and a private kindergarten, Sofya Timofeeva believes. The final decision is influenced more by the demands, values, and needs of the parents. Many Russians have more confidence in the public sector, because everyone knows that such institutions are regularly checked for compliance with safety standards. And the safety of a child is the most important thing for parents.
Unjustified risk
At the same time, ensuring the safety of pupils is more relevant not for private kindergartens, which are also controlled by the state in this matter, but in the case of nannies who receive children on their territory.
The services of such specialists, as a rule, are much cheaper — babysitters often look after several children at once, which reduces the price for each individual family. The risk is that such work often turns out to be outside the legal field. And the problem is not only in the "gray" salary, because of which the state does not receive taxes. The lack of control over such activities is much more dangerous.
— A private kindergarten or center is equipped with video surveillance to monitor what is happening on its territory. In addition, such an organization pays attention to compliance with sanitary standards and fire safety requirements. Do babysitters follow them at home? I am convinced that it is not. What kind of child safety can we talk about then? — Sofya Timofeeva points out the problem.
The qualifications of specialists offering such a service are also in question. Therefore, the interlocutor of Izvestia is skeptical about their activities, recommending that the choice of such nannies be approached with caution.
The market has been decided
The explosive growth in demand for the private sector, however, does not help this business to develop. There are fewer already registered commercial educational organizations in the country. And new ones are opening less actively — in 2025, according to a Rusprofile study, 496 private organizations working in the field of education were registered in the Russian Federation (a year earlier there were 598).
The problem is that the field of private education is not high-margin, but it is capital-intensive. Even projects with a solid budget cannot achieve a profit scale comparable to a large business.
And the fact that the heads of private kindergartens often do not know how to run a business at all only makes the situation more difficult, Sofya Timofeeva notes. Institutions are often opened by enthusiasts who love working with children, but do not understand at all how to launch a commercially successful project.
— And any private sector can exist successfully only if it is headed by a competent businessman. Therefore, over time, all small private kindergartens, which are headed by an illiterate head, collapse, — says the expert.
In her opinion, the state has created all the conditions for the private sector to work successfully. The requirements for running such a business are transparent and understandable, and all legislative regulations have already been worked out.
However, according to Ivan Sorokin, the tax burden remains a serious deterrent to the development of the market for private preschool organizations. The introduction of VAT for small businesses, which include many private institutions, will be painful for this sector.
— Kindergartens actually have no incoming VAT — we do not purchase goods in industrial volumes, we provide services. The main items of expenditure are rent and payroll. If VAT is added to this, the financial model for most small gardens will not be viable, warns the Izvestia interlocutor.
According to him, the state should take this into account in its fiscal policy. After all, the number of preschool institutions, including private ones, directly affects the demographic situation.
— With a disproportionate increase in the tax burden, entrepreneurs lose interest in such a business. As a result, there are fewer gardens, competition is decreasing, prices are rising, and it is more difficult for a family to decide to have a child," the expert says.
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