At the "Prolet 1" nursery in Skopje's Kozle, 300 children have been packed into six groups. Parents filed a petition with the Ministry of Social Policy, saying the conditions are inadequate - some of the children sleep on cots in the hallways and in the main hall, because the groups don't have enough space.

"Forty to fifty children in one group are impossible conditions for small children," one parent said. The Karpoš municipality, for its part, claims the building has capacity for two nurseries and that putting some of the children in the hall over the summer is standard practice, since that room is air-conditioned. Parents dispute that - the groups also have air conditioning, and last year all the children were put in the hall precisely because of renovation.

The solution the authorities offer is a new nursery - "Prolet 2," whose foundation stone was laid by deputy mayor Nedelčo Krstevski and Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski. The new building, financed by a Hungarian loan, will have seven groups for 130 children and is meant to be ready in around 120 days.

The numbers don't add up on their own: 300 children today, 130 places for a new nursery in four months. Even when "Prolet 2" opens, the gap remains. A foundation stone with the prime minister and the photographs are the easy part - that's what gets seen. The hard part is what the parents are living now, in June, with a child sleeping in the hallway. The question for every municipality is the same: are we building for the children enrolled today, or for the figure that looks nice in the press release?