‘More staff needed to enforce proposed Child Care Centre Act amendment’

KUCHING: The Ministry of Welfare, Community Well Being, Women, Family and Childhood Development welcomes the proposal to amend the Child Care Centre Act 1984, but cautions that constraints faced by Welfare Department staff should be taken into consideration.

Its minister Dato Sri Fatimah Abdullah said although the proposed amendment to ensure that babysitters are better supervised regardless of the number of children under their care was good, it would mean that the Welfare Department would require more staff to carry out monitoring activities.

“Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Ismail (who is also Women, Family and Community Development Minister) before this acknowledged that there are constraints to monitor childcare centres by the staff of the ministry.

“We have to see how we are going to tackle the problem in monitoring childcare centres because if there is a law which is not enforced, it would just defeat the purpose (of amending the law).

“If we see the responsibilities of the Welfare Department, they have a lot to do. For instance in Sarawak, they are handling 56,000 welfare cases. To specifically monitor childcare centres, we need more manpower,” she said when met at her office here yesterday.

Fatimah was responding to Women, Family and Community Development Deputy Minister Hannah Yeoh who said her ministry is aiming to amend the Act, which presently stipulates that only babysitters taking care of four or more children need to register with the Welfare Department.

Yeoh said the proposed amendment would see babysitters having to register with the department regardless of the number of children under their care.

“The current Act states if the number of children being cared for by minders at home is below four, they do not need to register with the ministry. We feel that there is a necessity to register no matter how many children you are looking after, so that the ministry can monitor,” added Fatimah.