Temporarily loosened day care regulation raises concerns

The Macau government announced this week in the Official Gazette that it will allow day care centers to decrease the amount of floor area for every toddler under their care in order to increase the number of admissions they are able to receive. However, the Macau General Union of the Neighborhood Associations (Kai Fong)‘s assistant secretary general, Cheong Un Si, suggested that this measure is not enough to solve the high demand for day care places.
On the other hand, Liu Nai Hua from the University of Macau (UM) claimed that the government should improve its monitoring of day care centers to ensure that they are observing the regulations.
The announcement in the Gazette has indicated that this adjustment is only to handle exceptional circumstances and will only last for two years, running until 2016.
It has reduced the required floor area for every child in day care from two square meters to 1.8 square meters. Every activity room is also able to house two more kids, with a new maximum capacity of 30 children in a room.
Kai Fong assistant secretary general Cheong Un Si told the Times that the day care centers Kai Fong is running will be able to provide about 30 more places after the adjustment.
Although it will ease the pressure on the parents and day care centers, she thinks that the measure will not resolve the shortage in day care places in the long term.
“If it is [to resolve the issue], the government has to open more day care centers following the change in birth rate.”
Moreover, the assistant secretary general pointed out that the increase in admissions is worsening the conditions in day care centers.
“When you have a higher density, the chance is also higher for diseases to spread. Therefore, it is also increasing the risk. Also, more children means that we have to hire more people to [maintain] our service quality.”
Kai Fong had already started hiring more staff before the announcement. Cheong Un Si said that their goal is to have 10 more people working for them. So far, they have been able to hire five to six new staff members. She reckoned that it is very difficult to find suitable employees, especially when all day care centers in Macau are trying to find new staff at the same time.
Liu Nai Hua from the UM Faculty of Education suggested that the adjustment on government regulation, alongside other policies such as the community nanny program, can help ease the shortage in day care places. Nevertheless, she claimed that the required floor area was in fact not strictly observed by the day care centers, even before the change.
Therefore, she called on the government to better supervise local day care service providers to ensure their compliance with the regulations.

Scholar thinks macau community nanny program “risky”

Dr Liu Nai Hua has claimed that there may be risks in the government’s community nanny program after comparing it to the programs in other countries and regions. She said that the community nannies in Macau are volunteers and there is no well-rounded training and evaluation system. Therefore, some risks do exist in the program. Dr Liu said that more regulations are needed or else the program will become less effective than previously assumed.