From February, the prices of children’s and youth centers (DDM) will be the same as in the first half of the school year, despite higher operating costs. This follows from a survey among Prague DDMs. According to outgoing councilor Vít Šimral (Pirates), the capital city of Prague will pay for them as the founder, and has a reserved reserve of 500 million crowns for this. Interest in rings is rather higher after the coronavirus pandemic.

“In this school year, we will not increase the price of interest groups, we are staying at the price of the first half of 2022/2023,” said the director of the DDM of the capital city of Prague, Libor Bezděk, but did not comment on the situation in more detail. Already at the beginning of the last semester, he said that the DDM showed that it would be possible without me to establish myself, which is the capital city of Prague. “We have agreed with our founder that the capital city of Prague will cover the increased costs for operating costs and we will not reflect the costs in the prices of the rings,” he said earlier.

“Costs are definitely higher, at least in the form of energy, but we already raised the price in September,” said Marek Dastych, deputy director of DDM in Modřany. He added that in case of further price increases, the prices will be decided at the beginning of the next school year. The director of Prague 6, Martin Vejvoda, stated that, in addition to the energy contribution from the Directorate General, the cost of the expansion would be increased from its own resources.

Leisure centers operate with the help of money from the Ministry of Education, founders and parents. The salary allowance remains from the ministry. The founders, which are mostly municipalities or regions, part of the operation. The rest of the money for operation is paid by the children’s homes from payments for clubs or camps. At the same time, it depends on the founder how much of the operating costs he takes over.

The survey shows that the occupancy of interest groups is higher than before the coronavirus pandemic. “After the covid pandemic, there is an increase in the number of participants, we have already exceeded the number of participants in previous years, the public is interested in participating in the activity,” said Richard Kresta, director of DDM in Prague 2, for example.

Seven centers fall under the DDM of the capital city of Prague and their director is Libor Bezděk. There are also other DDMs with various interest groups operating in Prague.