Day care centres
Day care centres are the most common form of early childhood education. In Espoo, we have almost 170 municipal and around 90 private day care centres, some of which are Finnish-speaking and some Swedish-speaking.
In Espoo, there are both municipal and private day care centres. The opening hours of day care centres vary slightly, but municipal day care centres are open from Monday to Friday between 6:30 and 18:00 as needed. You should always check the specific hours on the day care centre’s website or by contacting the day care centre. The opening hours of private day care centres also vary, but they are open for at least 10 hours a day if needed by families.
Children can attend early childhood education part-time or full-time. If you do shift work or need shift care for your child due to studying, you can apply for a place in a municipal day care centre that offers round-the-clock care. At these day care centres, care is available in the evening, on weekends and at night. Read more about round-the-clock care here.
Day care centre staff includes early childhood education teachers, childcarers and assistants as well as people in charge of cleaning and meals. In addition, there are special needs teachers and language and cultural teachers who work at a specific day care centre as necessary.
Some of the Finnish-speaking day care centres offer specialised early childhood education, such as Swedish language immersion groups, bilingual early childhood education (Finnish-English) or nature education. You can find more information on the day care centres’ webpages. You can also read more about early childhood education in different languages here.