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The reform of the gyms carried out by the Vilnius City Council has caused confusion among the organizations that provide these services. Although the objective of the reform was to bring more transparency and clarity, currently the representatives of the organizations do not understand who won the contest that ended a few days ago and they do not receive a response from the capital city.
We remind you that starting this year, service providers wishing to participate in the club’s activities can rent school premises not directly from the schools, but only through the unified “Active Vilnius” system administered by the municipality. Although after the introduction of the new system it was announced that it would guarantee the transparency of the rent and the possibility for more children to attend sports clubs or other clubs closer to home, the results are surprising both for the municipality and for service providers.
Mindaugas Noreika, director of Vilnius’ largest basketball school (SKM), says that in season 14 the entire school community encountered uncertainty. In the summer, the institution was forced to pay attention not to improving the educational methodology or other work in preparation for the new school year, but to finding ways to preserve the possibility of applying for the lease of Vilnius school gyms.
“Already in June we informed the representatives of the municipality that the formula for the rental of the corridors that they had approved was written recklessly. According to her, all sports schools with at least a little more children have lost practically all opportunities to apply to gyms. When the municipality categorically refused to consider changing the methodology, we faced a dilemma: go bankrupt, leave our coaches without jobs, children without circles, or find ways to participate in the competition. We are dissatisfied with the confusion that we will have to remodel groups mid-season, that uncertainty and tension have dragged on for half a year, that gym rental prices are ten times different, and Noreika.
SKM has found a solution to divide the institution into several legal entities, as only a service provider operating in a school can win a tender for the lease of premises. According to the representatives of the basketball school, they had to create more than 70 institutions, and the management of the institution spent a lot of time taking care of the establishment of these institutions, spending thousands of euros on legal services, reconciling the increase in paperwork, costs additional accounting and financial.
“We were even more surprised by the results of the competitions. While according to municipal procedure, the winners of the competition have an indisputable right to sign a lease, we have already received information from 17 schools that they will not sign contracts with us. We have asked an explanation to the city council, but we did not receive a response, and we heard through informal channels that we were accused of dishonest activity in closed meetings. We do not understand how unfair this activity is if we have warned their representatives in advance about the imperfection of the municipality’s formula, but we have not received a reaction. It seems that the only expectation of municipal officials was that we would do nothing and suspend our activities starting this fall. We asked why the competition formula was directed against large organizations that have made Vilnius famous for decades, ”says M. Noreika openly.
According to unofficial information, the new gym rental procedure has left many children who attend municipal and private sports schools overboard. Due to the reckless formula, there are institutions where 30 groups of children who attend that school won clubs or academies 3-4 times bigger. This suggests that the goal of ensuring mass raising of children closer to home has certainly not been achieved. The municipality has not yet released official information.
“Some schools have illegally excluded us from the competition. But since we have satisfied our need, we do not intend to enter into any additional legal disputes with them. In recent years, we have faced an attempt by some representatives of the Municipality of Vilnius opposing representatives of public and private groups We observe that now, instead of solving the problem of restoring clarity to children who attend groups and their parents, a “divide and rule” tactic is being used. dialogues, information is only available at the level of rumors, and an attempt is made to oppose the larger children’s educational institutions with the smaller ones, the rugby players with the soccer players, the badminton representatives with the basketball players, etc. ”, says M Noreika.
Faced with the indifference of municipal leaders, SKM called on the municipality, public and private non-formal educational institutions, to sit down immediately and seek a solution.
“Throughout this reform and the fight through the hallways, I miss the fight for the best interests of children. My vision is that all Vilnius children must have attended at least one sport, art or other group. That is what we must consider as the main objective in the development of the system. Today, there is a wave of formulas, procedures, sports schools are pushing each other, and children will soon be forced to sit at home. We have to admit the mistakes we have made, sit down at a table and look for a common solution at the same time, we invite you to do it immediately ”, says M. Noreika.
The letter circulated by SKM proposes to reserve a time within the next 3 business days during which all institutions that educate children could make suggestions on how to ensure the smooth continuity of the activities of the circles this school year. To ensure transparency, it is proposed to hold these meetings open to parents of Vilnius residents who attend the groups, disseminate them on the Internet and publish their minutes.
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