Japan

Day Care A Regulatory Mess
Takehiro Ito / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer

"I'm home," the children shout as they enter the day care center.

"Welcome back," staff reply.

Day care centers for school-age children have become alternative homes for some children, where those with working parents spend time after school and during school holidays.

Amid a sharp increase in the number of children using the facilities in recent years, the centers face a host of tasks to improve their operation.
Many day care centers have become too large to comfortably and safely care for children and a minimum standard of managing the facilities has not been established.

First- to third-grade primary school children attending day care centers spent about 500 hours longer a year in the facilities than in school, if time during summer recess was included, according to a 2003 estimate by the national liaison council of day care centers for school-age children.

Council official Yutaka Sanada says day care centers offer a service "so parents can work without worrying about their children."

"The centers have reliable instructors who check whether the children come," he says. "The children can rest, play and do their homework. [Parents'] expectations of the centers is high."
However, the quality of day care centers is far from consistent.

One reason is that unlike nurseries, clear regulations on managing day care centers, such as the number of staff and size of the facilities, do not exist.

As of 2004, only the Tokyo metropolitan government and Saitama prefectural government and 43 municipal governments including Sapporo had clear standards on day care centers for school-age children, according to the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry.

Thus there are many problems in the quality of facilities. For example, some centers have only one instructor, no toilets for designed for young children and the children are not watched sufficiently.

Surging Demand Causes Headaches

But the biggest problem facing officials is the explosion in the number of facilities and children they look after.

The growth is being blamed the increasing number of dual-income families and parental concern caused by recent crimes targeting children.

According to the ministry, as of May there were about 15,000 day care centers for school-age children and about 650,000 children registered in the centers across the country.

That is an increase of 4,000 facilities compared with five years ago. But the number of children going to the centers has increased by about 260,000. As a result, the average number of children per facility has increased from 35 to 43.

Large-scale day care centers have increased particularly in urban areas, with about 1,800 facilities accommodating 71 or more children. In some cases, children going to such centers have complained of headaches, while others speak unnecessarily loudly in normal situations due to the noisy environment at the crowded centers.

Like nursery schools, day care centers have long waiting lists.

Welfare experts said children on these lists are cared for by grandparents, play with other children or go to two or more cram schools until their parents come home.

Last year, the Saitama prefectural government made headlines by forming detailed rules on establishing and managing day care centers for school-age children.

The regulations stipulate that space per child should be at least 1.65 square meters, and there should be at least two instructors at facilities with under 20 children and three at those with more than 20.

A prefectural government official from the division for child-rearing support said, "We'll try to improve the quality of the facilities based on the regulations."

The national liaison council also drew up a list of draft regulations in 2003 and has asked the central government to use it as a basis for a national system.

While the central government has repeatedly spoken of the importance of support for child-rearing, it needs to define its policy on the role of the day care centers for school-age children, and tackle the issue of defining standards at the facilities.