Guarantees of accessibility of the constitutional right to preschool education in Russia

The article is devoted to analyzing the most common problematic issues of ensuring guarantees of the accessibility of the right to preschool education in the Russian Federation. Based on doctrinal approaches and law enforcement practices, the author concludes that changes are needed in the current mechanism for implementing the right to preschool education: altering the procedure for obtaining a subsidized place in a preschool educational institution, changes in registration for an electronic queue to secure a place in the desired preschool educational organization, and defining criteria for the actual and territorial accessibility of preschool education. The aim of this research is a detailed analysis of the features of ensuring guarantees for the accessibility of the constitutional right to preschool education, in conjunction with an analysis of the norms of current legislation, judicial practice, and positions of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation and the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation. To achieve the set goal, general scientific and specific methods of legal science were used. Based on the formal-legal method, the existing normative legal framework regulating various aspects of guarantees for the accessibility of the right to preschool education was analyzed. The use of the method of constructing legal frameworks is necessary to accumulate the criteria for the accessibility of preschool education: actual accessibility and reasonable territorial remoteness. Based on the conducted research, it can be concluded that the guarantees for the accessibility of the right to preschool education are regulated rather weakly at the federal legislative level. The main conclusions of the conducted research are the identification of a range of special (legal) guarantees for the implementation of the right to preschool education (the enshrinement at the federal legislative level of the accessibility and gratuitousness of preschool education that the state is obliged to provide; the mandatory licensing of educational activities and the obligation to meet licensing requirements regarding the creation of conditions for the quality and safe implementation of preschool education programs, supervision, and care for children; the introduction of federal state educational standards for preschool education, mandatory for all types of educational institutions to establish uniform quality criteria for preschool education (there are no criteria for supervision and care); methodological support for the executive authorities of the subjects of the Russian Federation in exercising their powers for the financial provision of state and municipal services in the field of preschool education, provided by federal authorities; the establishment of norms for the number of children in preschool educational organizations; and the possibility for parents to receive methodological, psychological-pedagogical, diagnostic, and consulting assistance free of charge in consulting centers).