Pre-primary Education Enrollment

Children born in 2019 will participate in pre-primary education during the school year 2025–2026. In addition, those 7-year-olds whose first school year has been postponed by a year as well as those 5-year-olds with a decision on extended compulsory education are entitled to pre-primary education.

A child’s guardian is obliged to ensure that their child participates in pre-primary education or some other activity that fulfills the objectives of pre-primary education during the year before compulsory education begins.

Pre-primary education is arranged on schooldays, four hours per day. Pre-primary education is free of charge and includes one daily meal.

Welcome to pre-primary education

Pre-primary education begins on Wednesday, August 6, 2025, and ends on Friday, May 29, 2026.

Pre-primary education aims to bolster a child's developmental and learning potentials, as well as to strengthen the child’s social skills and healthy self-esteem together with the child’s family.

In pre-primary education, children experience and learn as part of a peer group. Learning largely takes place through playing, and there is always time for playing during every pre-primary education day.

Remember to enroll your child in pre-primary education from January 7 to January 31, 2025!

You can enroll online on the VaSa service or by leaving an application at a daycare center.
Check the pre-primary education places on Vantaa's website
You can view the pre-primary education decision on the VaSa service.

Welcome to the open house event!

All pre-primary education places in Vantaa will arrange an introduction to families in May. The pre-primary education places will inform the guardians about the events.

Pre-primary education brochures

Esiopetusesite_2025_Englanti.pdf(pdf, 301.84 KB)

In English

Esiopetusesite_2025_Arabia.pdf(pdf, 389.48 KB)

العربية

Esiopetusesite_2025_Albania.pdf(pdf, 274.56 KB)

shqip

Esiopetusesite_2025_Somali.pdf(pdf, 279.05 KB)

Soomaali

Esiopetusesite_2025_Venäjä.pdf(pdf, 301.28 KB)

Pусски

Esiopetusesite_2025_Viro.pdf(pdf, 289.4 KB)

eesti

Supplementary early childhood education

In addition to pre-primary education, children have the possibility of participating in early childhood education, subject to a charge, which supplements pre-primary education. Inform about your need for supplementary early childhood education in connection with enrolling in pre-primary education.

Language options in pre-primary education

Each pre-primary education group will familiarize itself with the languages and cultures of the participants in the group during the year. If you want your child's pre-primary education to have a stronger language focus, Vantaa also offers:

English-enriched pre-primary education
Swedish-immersion pre-primary education
English-language or comprehensive English-language pre-primary education

Preparatory instruction provides facilities for studying in Finnish language in basic education

Instruction preparing for basic education is arranged for those children whose Finnish-language proficiency is not sufficient for studying in a pre-primary education group.

Preparatory instruction is given on school days, five hours per day. Four hours of instruction will be given as part of pre-primary education and one hour will be arranged in a smaller group.

Guardians shall enroll their children in pre-primary education, after which applying for preparatory instruction will be agreed together with the child's guardians, the pre-primary education place, and the language and cultural coordinators.

Applying to pre-primary education

Fill the application for early childhood education electronically in the VaSa service. When registering for pre-primary education, state whether the child needs early childhood education in addition to pre-primary education.

You must log in to the application with the Suomi.fi identification method by using your online banking IDs, mobile certificate or certificate card. You can edit the application after submitting it as well as track its process in the service. You can download mobile app, called CGI Vesa in application stores.

Enrollment in Pre-Primary Education - Instructions(pdf, 1.31 MB) Graphical instructions for enrolling in pre-primary education. Instructions for guardians for using VaSa-service(pdf, 920.49 KB) General presentation of the function of the VaSa service with photos.

The VaSa service functions best with the two newest versions of Chrome, Firefox, Edge and Safari browsers. The service cannot be used with an Internet Explorer browser or older versions of the Edge browser.

VaSa- service

Fill in the application on a paper form

If you cannot complete the application electronically, you can also submit one on paper. You can fill in and print out the "Enrollment in pre-primary education" -form.

Preschool enrollment (523016e)(pdf, 227.3 KB)

If your child needs early childhood education in addition to pre-primary education, you must fill early childhood education form ("varhaiskasvatushakemus"), if your child

moves from private early childhood education or service voucher day care to a municipal day care in Vantaa,
 moves from one service voucher daycare center in Vantaa to another service voucher daycare center,
 has not been in early childhood education in Vantaa before starting pre-school education.

A filled-in form can be returned to any municipal day care centre or sent to Vantaa-info

More information about enrollment in pre-primary education and pre-primary education places, contact early childhood education service counsellors or day care centers.

Grounds for assigning pre-primary education place

Board of education and learning, November 11, 2024, Section 14

a) The pre-primary education place is primarily assigned on the basis of the pre-primary education student-admission area of the child's home address. Places are assigned in such a way that travel to the pre-primary education place is as short and safe as possible while accounting for reasonable sized pre-primary education groups and the limited number of pre-primary education places. The safety of travel is assessed from the perspective that guardians are responsible for the child’s travel to and from the pre-primary education place. The pre-primary education student-admission area will not be accounted for when assigning places for Swedish-language immersion education, English-language, comprehensive English-language pre-primary education, or pre-primary education of a daycare center offering around-the-clock care.

b) Pre-primary education places are assigned on the basis of applications that have arrived at the place arranging pre-primary education during the application period. The guardians’ wishes are accounted for to the extent possible. The pre-primary education place assigned to a child may also be other than the wish stated by the guardians in the pre-primary education application. The decision-maker assigns the places while accounting for all the applications for a specific pre-primary education place. In addition to as short and safe pre-primary education travel as possible, the student-admission area accounts for the following as special reasons:

reasons related to support: This refers to such a reason that has a direct impact on arranging pre-primary education and on the place where pre-primary education can be arranged for the child in question. Acknowledging the need for support does not mean that the child is assigned the pre-primary education place the guardian wished for, but a place where the support the child needs can be arranged in a manner compliant with the child’s best interests.
continuum of early childhood education: The child applying for pre-primary education has attended early childhood education in the pre-primary education place before pre-primary education begins.
the sibling principle: The child applying for pre-primary education may fulfill the sibling principle if the child has a sibling in the daycare center at the moment the decision is made and in the following year. The guardian shall inform of the sibling principle on the application form.

c) The final solution for assigning pre-primary education places is drawing of lots. This may happen in a situation where the place arranging pre-primary education has fewer places than applicants in the student-admission area and when the applications are equal.

d) A secondary pre-primary education place can be assigned in a situation where the guardian has applied for a pre-primary education place outside their home address’ student-admission area, and the applied pre-primary education place has available places. If secondary applicants outnumber the places available, drawing of lots will resolve the matter.

When there are more applicants than pre-primary education places, the following criteria will be applied to assigning places to English-language and comprehensive English-language pre-primary education:

The child has experience of an English-language environment
The child's sibling is in English-language daycare or education
The last solution, when everything is equal, is drawing of lots.

When there are more applicants than pre-primary education places, the following criteria will be applied to assigning places to Swedish-language immersion education:

The child has participated in language immersion early childhood education
The child’s sibling is in Swedish-language immersion education
The last solution, when everything is equal, is drawing of lots.

Early Childhood Education Complementary to Preschool

In addition to preschool a child has the right to early childhood education which is always aimed to be organised in the same location as pre-primary education. Early childhood education is subject to charge, but the participation to preschool is considered in the fee.

When a child requires complementary early childhood education in addition to pre-primary education:

When the family fills the registration for preschool, they notify at the same time if the child has a need for early childhood education which complements pre-primary education.
If the need for complementary early childhood education arises in the middle of the ongoing preschool year, the family must contact the head of the preschool location.

If your child requires early childhood education in addition to pre-primary education, you can report that on the preschool registration form.

The filled form can be returned to any municipal day care centre, Vantaa Info service points or alternatively sent to early childhood education services to the address:

Varhaiskasvatus, Varhaiskasvatushakemus, PL 1500, 01030 Vantaan kaupunki.

Additional information on pre-primary education and the registration can be received from day care centres and early childhood education service coordination.

Go to pre-primary education front page

Enrolment Preschool education Applications