The Measures for the Administration of Family Childcare Sites are open for comments
The public expects family childcare points to live up to their "trust"
【Reporter investigation】
Who will bring the two-year-old baby in the family? This made Lin Xi, a parent in Beijing, "full of gunsmoke".
Both parents are not in good health and cannot bring their babies for a long time; I have invited several childcare sisters-in-law, but I am always not satisfied; I have visited some childcare institutions, which are either too far from home or charge too much; Lin Xi and her husband are both in a period of rising careers, and no one can make up their minds to return to the family. "If only there were a childcare institution with reasonable fees and good quality education at our doorstep!" The couple sighed.
Lin Xi's expectations are landing. A few days ago, the Population and Family Department of the National Health Commission publicly solicited opinions on the "Measures for the Management of Family Nursery Points", encouraging the use of residences to provide full-day care, half-day care, timed care, temporary care and other services for infants and young children under the age of 3, and proposed that the number of people receiving care should not exceed 5. Many experts believe that this provides new policy guidance for promoting the standardized development of family childcare points and resolving the contradiction between supply and demand in the infant and child care market.
But concerns have also followed - some practitioners are worried that the policy threshold is too high and it is difficult to continue operations; Some parents are worried that the supervision methods of family childcare points are insufficient, the teachers are not strong, and it is difficult to provide safe and scientific education, just "workshop-style babywatching".
How can family childcare centers live up to their "trust", achieve benign and sustainable development, and meet the diverse childcare needs of parents today? The reporter launched an investigation on this.
1. Childcare at the doorstep is becoming a "just need"
At 7:00 in the morning, Liu Qing, who lives in a community in Tiantongyuan, Beijing, went out with her two-and-a-half-year-old daughter. First send the child to a family care institution called "Egger" in the next unit, and then hurry to the subway station to get ready to start the day's work.
"Normal care hours are from 7:<> a.m. to <>:<> p.m., three meals and two o'clock. In the morning and afternoon, the teacher will take the children outdoors in the community for an hour each. In case of overtime or temporary affairs, the teachers of the institution will also help to bring more children. In the childcare time without the help of the elderly, this small nursery point opened in a residential building has become the biggest support for Liu Qing to work hard in the workplace with peace of mind.
With the implementation of the "two-child" and "three-child" birth policies, high-quality and convenient childcare services are becoming the "just need" of many families. However, compared with the huge demand, there is still a huge gap in China's childcare services - relevant data show that there are about 0 million infants and young children aged 3 to 4200 in China, of which one-third have a relatively strong demand for childcare services, but the overall infant and toddler enrollment rate is only 1.3%. By the end of 5, China had 5.2021 nurseries for infants under the age of 3 per 2,03 population, which is still far from the target of 4.5 at the end of the <>th Five-Year Plan period.
"In order to meet the parenting needs of young parents, the state has been continuously strengthening the construction of nursery places in recent years, but these nurseries are mainly kindergarten classes and childcare institutions concentrated in commercial areas, and the overall utilization rate of nursery places in many institutions is low." The reasons are, firstly, the high fees, and secondly, it is difficult to meet the needs of parents for nearby and flexible childcare. After years of follow-up research, Shi Yi, an associate researcher at the Chinese and Development Research Center, found that at a deeper level, this gap stems from the lack of effective supply of support positions.
It is precisely because of this that although the state officially issued a document in 2019 to include childcare institutions in standardized management, between the two poles of professional childcare institutions with higher prices and their own efforts to raise children, some family childcare points have already emerged according to market demand and grew wildly in the "gray area".
Gao Bingcheng, director of the Preschool Education Research Office of the Chinese Academy of Education Sciences, introduced that specifically, there are two main forms of existence of family childcare points: one is mutual aid childcare between families, and the model is mutual assistance between neighbors with children or several people jointly hiring a nursery teacher; The other is a small childcare institution in a residential building, which is held in a residential building but operates as a small childcare institution.
"From the perspective of the law of children's growth and development, family childcare points are a useful supplement to the current childcare services, which have the characteristics of being close to home, consistent with children's home growth environment, small and flexible, etc., to meet the diversified care needs of different families." Mao Zhuoyan, deputy director of the Population Development Research Center of the Capital University of Economics and Business, said.
Shi Yi also holds the same view: "Generally speaking, there are three main costs of childcare services, site expenditure, personnel expenses and facility maintenance costs. With housing as a childcare place, the cost of housing has been greatly reduced, and the radius of childcare has been greatly reduced, so that more families can afford to provide childcare, further strengthening the effective supply of childcare, helping to reduce the burden of family childcare, and improve the fertility level and willingness to give birth. ”
2. Parents are worried that scientific care is difficult to achieve, and practitioners are worried about more requirements and less benefits
Although the fee is not too high and the childcare is more convenient, after inspecting the family childcare institutions near the two communities, a series of question marks still made Lin Xi very anxious: "After all, it is not a regular kindergarten, is food safety guaranteed?" Who is responsible? Is outdoor activity time guaranteed? The interior decoration ring is not environmentally friendly..."
Even Liu Qing, who bluntly said that she was "relieved by the family childcare point", once "stepped on the thunder": "It turned out that a childcare class suddenly ran away, emptied the table and chair facilities overnight, and the three-month childcare fee paid in advance was also lost." ”
The reporter's investigation found that in recent years, due to lack of supervision and irregular schooling, negative incidents such as family childcare institutions running away, insecure care, and neighborhood disputes have occurred from time to time.
These concerns were echoed in this consultation draft. The provisions clearly stipulate that the number of people in each family childcare point should not exceed 5; A maximum of 3 infants and toddlers per caregiver; The per capita construction area of infants and young children should not be less than 9 square meters; A video security monitoring system should be set up, and the retention period of surveillance video data should not be less than 90 days. In addition, the Trial Measures also stipulate a number of important links such as the qualifications of caregivers and supervision measures.
But even with these norms, parents generally say "trust is not high." "Compared with professional childcare institutions, family childcare has a low threshold and difficult supervision after all. At present, the policy is led by the health department, with fire protection, civil affairs, market supervision, and even streets and townships participating in management, but will multi-party participation become that no one cares? One parent said.
In addition, whether young children can receive scientific early ability development education in family childcare points is also a common concern of parents.
"The survey found that more than 90% of families choose to give care when their children are 2 to 3 years old. On the one hand, this reflects the lack of supply of care for younger children in China's childcare service system, and on the other hand, it also reflects the higher requirements of parents for childcare institutions to promote the early development of children's abilities. Shi Yi introduced that there are three criteria for judging inclusive childcare services: one is affordable, the other is convenient and accessible, and the third is quality assurance, "From the perspective of service model, family childcare points have great advantages in affordable price and convenient accessibility, but in terms of 'quality assurance', there is indeed a long way to go." ”
Compared with parents' concerns about safety and quality, practitioners are full of worries about whether they can continue to operate.
In a family nursery center in a community near Lishuiqiao, Beijing, Li Qing, the person in charge, calculated an account for reporters: "Each child charges 3500,5 yuan per month, if according to the new version of the opinion, only 130 children can be enrolled, deducting rent, water and electricity, teaching aids, food expenses and social security expenses of two caregivers, etc., the monthly salary of the caregiver is more than 10,<>." Previously, the <>-square-meter nursery had <> children.
"The restriction of the nursery is to allow the child to receive more refined care, which really takes care of the needs of the parents. However, in this way, will the family childcare center that originally has a lower cost increase the fee or reduce the quality of childcare in order to ensure the income? Lin Xi voiced many parents' concerns.
3. Family care needs to be "sustened" by supporting systems for thriving
In response to the discussions and concerns of parents and practitioners, a number of experts interviewed said that the introduction of the trial measures will help increase the public's awareness of the childcare industry, but as a new development model, the healthy and sustainable development of family childcare points needs to implement management requirements in detail, and also need to be linked with other relevant policies to provide "institutional nutrition" for their growth.
Regarding the safety and quality issues that parents are generally worried about, Mao Zhuoyan believes that for family childcare points, the focus should first be on strong supervision, and all departments should earnestly fulfill their rights and responsibilities, "and then refine the provisions on their service standards and service capabilities, and cannot relax the standards because the family childcare points are small, so as to truly give parents peace of mind and let the industry develop healthily." ”
Gao Bingcheng said that in the longer term, it is necessary to further strengthen the cultivation of childcare talents and improve its training and certification system: "A qualified family childcare practitioner must master certain knowledge of infant and child care, mental health, food safety, first aid and fire training. With the full rollout of family childcare points, the contradiction between talent supply and demand will be further manifested, and the cultivation of childcare talents will become more and more urgent. ”
Regarding the problem of operating income, which practitioners are generally worried about, Shi Yi suggested that government investment should be increased, and family childcare centers should be given certain operating subsidies, or reduce their operating costs by means of incentive subsidies and purchase services, so that they can truly become an important part of the inclusive childcare service supply system. (Guangming Daily reporter Deng Hui)