Keeping our children safe

KEEPING children safe while in the care of childminders is not an easy task. There are 2.6 million Malaysian children aged below four years (Department of Statistics, Malaysia 2018).

Many young parents work to meet the needs of their families, hence both the father and mother may be employed and require a childminder.

Under the Child Care Centre Act 1984 (Revised 2007), a “child care centre” is defined as any premises that receives four or more children under the age of four years to be cared for a fee. Such centres must be licensed and registered with the Social Welfare Department. The Act does not cover childcare by relatives. More importantly, childminders looking after children aged between one and three years old are currently exempted from registration.

There are four categories of child care centres outlined in Section 5 of the Act: home-based, workplacebased, community-based, and institution-based childcare centre. A fifth category is a childcare centre for children with disability. Most are defined as looking after 10 or more children, except for the home-based centre (four to nine children).

In 2016, the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry revealed that only 4,240 nurseries and 1,650 childcare centres were registered with the Welfare Department. No one knows the real number as most of the centres operate quietly and parents are in need of their services.

If we consider the 2.6 million children under four years of age and take a very conservative approach, assuming that 50% of women work (54% in 2016), 50% of those who work use their relatives to look after children, and that most childcare centres are large, this would suggest that there are at least 65,000 childcare centres or nurseries operating and some are unregistered. As many childminders look after one to three children, they are exempted from registration.

Registered childcare centres are expected to have a good curriculum and be monitored by the Welfare Department, which checks on staff qualifications, safety, quality of care, ratio of staff to children and nutrition, among others.

Besides the Welfare Department, the Association of Registered Childcare Providers Malaysia has worked hard to try and elevate childcare services in the country.

I would like to outline some major challenges and offer suggestions on improving the safety of children in the care of child- minders. Firstly, there has been a call for more legislation but this may not be the best solution. The existing laws and regulations are comprehensive but laws are rarely preventative in nature.

One possible tightening of the Child Care Centre Act 1984 (Revised 2007) is to consider if we need to include registration of childminders looking after one to three children.

Secondly, it must be recognised that the Welfare Department is extremely understaffed. The staff have a wide scope of work and can barely cope with the needs of the community. It has been recognised that the monitoring of even registered childcare centres is limited.

There is a need to dramatically improve the staffing of the Welfare Department to enable it to support the many social needs in the country.

While we work to increase numbers, the quality of staff also requires serious improvement. We need to invest in large numbers of trained social workers and not depend on those who have to learn on the job after leaving school.

Thirdly, there must be a mechanism to report all unregistered childcare centres and childminders. While it would appear logical to enforce the law and shut down all unregistered childcare centres, finding them may be a problem as parents who are desperate for minders tend to keep quiet.

Many centres do not register due to the need to meet the requirements of training and standards. Perhaps the Association of Registered Childcare Providers Malaysia and the Welfare Department can work together to upgrade these unregistered centres progressively.

Offer them an opportunity to meet the requirements over time and also provide support to get the necessary training for their childminders.

Finally, the best childminder is a parent. Since young parents both work to make ends meet, employers need to invest their profits into the welfare of their employees. Many industrialised countries pay better wages to allow only one parent to work. Others offer longer periods of paid support – even up to two years – to parents to be off work to take care of their children.

We need to invest in our young families and their children. The progress of our nation cannot be measured by financial success alone but also of the wellbeing of the people.

DATUK DR AMAR-SINGH Senior consultant paediatrician Ipoh