Absence from early childhood education and pre-primary education

Your child may be absent from early childhood education or pre-primary education, but you should always report the absence to their early childhood education or pre-primary education unit. The client fee is charged for the duration of the absence in line with the Act on Client Fees in Early Childhood Education and Care. If you make use of the care place guarantee and temporarily discontinue your child’s early childhood education, no client fee is charged for the duration of the absence.

A child’s long-term absence (of more than one month) must be reported in advance to the early childhood education unit. Report the absence by using the absence function in the eVaka calendar.

If your child attends pre-primary education or preparatory education, you must notify the child’s pre-primary education unit of any absences. If the absence lasts less than a week, you can notify the pre-primary education teacher in writing, for example by sending a message through eVaka. If your child's absence lasts more than a week, please submit an absence application in eVaka. As a rule, children must attend pre-primary education. However, if a child is absent, it is the responsibility of the guardians to ensure that the goals set for pre-primary education are met during the absence.

If the child is absent due to illness, inform the early childhood education or pre-primary education unit of the situation as soon as the illness starts. Please note that you cannot change your child’s absence into a sickness absence later. Upon request, you must provide a doctor’s or nurse’s certificate of sickness absence.

You can read about the impact of absences on the client fee here. 

If your child is absent due to parental leave, read more about reporting absences here.

Under certain conditions, a child’s municipal early childhood education can be temporarily discontinued so that the child still has the right to return to the same early childhood education unit. This right is called a care place guarantee. No client fee is charged for absence during the guarantee period.

If you make use of the care place guarantee, your child has the right to return to the same early childhood education unit, providing the following conditions are met:

• the child has attended early childhood education for at least four consecutive months before the discontinuation;
• the child returns to early childhood education in August of the following operational year;
• the absence lasts for at least 4 consecutive months;
• the family concludes a written agreement on the discontinuation with the child’s early childhood education unit no later than two weeks before the discontinuation (the form is called ‘Guarantee of an early childhood education place’).

The possibility to temporarily discontinue early childhood education does not apply to pre-primary education or preparatory education, as participation in these is obligatory.

In family and group family day care, the care place guarantee is conditional. A child can return to the same family or group family day care unit only if places become available in the group in August.

Inform the early childhood education unit in writing four months before the agreed absence period ends whether the child will return to early childhood education. If you wish, you can extend the absence period by another year. Submit the notification in writing for example by email. If you wish to extend the care place guarantee, fill in the ‘Guarantee of an early childhood education place’ form and submit it to the child’s early childhood education unit. You can print the form in English here. You can also request a form from the child’s early childhood education unit.

The guarantee is not valid if your child returns to early childhood education before the end of the agreed absence period. Please note that in this case the normal early childhood education application and processing times will apply. If you wish, you can also apply for a place in private early childhood education for your child so that the care place guarantee remains valid. In this case, you must also remember to inform the child’s early childhood education unit four months before the agreed return date whether the child will return.

The child’s early childhood education can be temporarily discontinued a maximum of two times under the conditions of the care place guarantee. You can apply for child home care allowance from Kela for the period the child does not attend early childhood education. During the care place guarantee, the family can use the services of clubs and residents’ parks.