MINISTRY FINDING WAYS TO HELP UNREGISTERED CHILDCARE CENTRES
It may encourage childcare centres to register, says deputy minister
THE Women, Family and Community Development Ministry is looking into ways to assist childcare centres to register with the authorities.
This may include providing subsidies to the centres and parents in the bottom 40 per cent group (B40).
Its deputy minister, Hannah Yeoh, said childcare centre operators would need to seek approval from the Health Ministry, Fire and Rescue Department and the local council.
She said more often than not, operators were unable to comply with the requirements of the local council.
She said one of the factors that led to the high number of unregistered childcare centres was the reluctance of residents to have such centres set up in their neighbourhoods.
“Residents do not want these centres in their neighbourhoods as children can be noisy.”
“Local authorities face problems when they ask residents for information and consent,” she said at a Deepavali event in Taman Tun Dr Ismail here.
She was asked to comment on a New Sunday Times (NSU) report on unregistered childcare centres.
The Welfare Department’s statistics showed that only 4,302 childcare centres are registered. Of this, only 3,173 of the 16,873 caregivers in its list are certified. The remaining do not even meet the minimum requirements of a caregiver.
The Statistics Department had revealed that there are 2.3 million children below the age of 4, which means that Malaysia needs 38,333 childcare centres.
Yeoh appealed to residents’ associations and neighbourhood watch groups to understand the plight of childcare centre operators and engage with them.
She said the ministry had requested a list of operators whose applications had been rejected by the Housing and Local Government Ministry.
The ministry, she said, was engaging at the cabinet level to expand the childcare subsidy for civil servants.
Yeoh said there were no subsidised childcare centres in the country, and as such, parents had to pay the expenses on their own.
“The cost of caring for a child (at the centres) is at least RM500. Those in the B40 group in the city cannot afford to pay such an amount.
“The move forward is to ensure that if you want children to be in a safe place and want these homes to be running at a decent operational cost, subsidised childcare is the way to go.
“That is why I stressed on having the corporate sector look into giving subsidies for childcare to improve work-life balance,” she said.
Speaking to the New Straits Times later, Yeoh said the ministry’s proposals needed consideration, deliberation and engagement.
“They are a work in progress.” She said she would check with the ministry on the NSU report on a woman, known only as Nori, who had reported her 2-monthold daughter’s babysitter to the Welfare Department for caring for at least 10 children at her flat.
It was reported that the Welfare Department had claimed that the babysitter had done no wrong.
The NSU reported that under the Child Care Centre Act 1984, a childcare centre is defined as any premises that accepts four or more children under the age of 4 to care for in return for a wage.
The Act also allows for those taking care of three or fewer children to be exempted from having to register with the Welfare Department.
While the law states that a home-based childcare centre can accept up to nine children, it, however, did not take into consideration that many of these home-based caregivers are also taking care of their own children or grandchildren on the same premises.