March 17, 2016
While the issue of children on waiting lists to gain admission to childcare centers is attracting social attention, Higashikurume City in Tokyo announced a plan to close all pubic childcare centers in the city. Parents and citizens are raising their voices against the plan which is unprecedented in the country.
As many public daycare centers for children across the country have been privatized one after another under the name of administrative reform, the Higashikurume city government has also carried out privatization. In the March session of the city assembly, the city government made public its plan to close all six remaining public childcare centers in the city. One of the six facilities will in stages stop accepting new children from Fiscal Year 2018 and will cease operating after all children in the facility enter elementary school.
In a city assembly welfare committee meeting on March 16, Japanese Communist Party lawmaker Hara Noriko demanded the withdrawal of the plan and criticized the city’s explanation that the planned closures will not lead to a reduction in childcare services as the entry of private companies will take on the extra children. She said that both the content of the plan itself and city’s handling of the issue are outrageous.
Public childcare facilities play a role as a place offering child-rearing support as shown in the fact that those facilities’ playgrounds are utilized also by children in private nursery centers having no such spaces. They are also important for children with disabilities as care services for such children are provided almost solely by public facilities.
A 35-year-old woman, who listened to the committee discussions in a public observers’ seat with her one-year-old daughter who will enter a public childcare center in April, said that the city’s notion regarding taking measures to reverse the declining birthrate is just lip service and that under the current situation, young people cannot have and raise children without anxiety.
Zitsukata Nobuko of the national liaison council of childcare-related groups pointed out that the privatization of public day nurseries are being carried out nationwide, but in most cases, municipal governments keep a few public facilities. She said that the Higashikurume City’s plan to have no public childcare facilities is exceptionally outrageous. She criticized the city government for neglecting to fulfill its responsibility to act in the interest of its residents. In order to resolve the problem of children unable to enter childcare centers, municipal governments need to take the responsibility to improve childcare policies, she stressed.
As many public daycare centers for children across the country have been privatized one after another under the name of administrative reform, the Higashikurume city government has also carried out privatization. In the March session of the city assembly, the city government made public its plan to close all six remaining public childcare centers in the city. One of the six facilities will in stages stop accepting new children from Fiscal Year 2018 and will cease operating after all children in the facility enter elementary school.
In a city assembly welfare committee meeting on March 16, Japanese Communist Party lawmaker Hara Noriko demanded the withdrawal of the plan and criticized the city’s explanation that the planned closures will not lead to a reduction in childcare services as the entry of private companies will take on the extra children. She said that both the content of the plan itself and city’s handling of the issue are outrageous.
Public childcare facilities play a role as a place offering child-rearing support as shown in the fact that those facilities’ playgrounds are utilized also by children in private nursery centers having no such spaces. They are also important for children with disabilities as care services for such children are provided almost solely by public facilities.
A 35-year-old woman, who listened to the committee discussions in a public observers’ seat with her one-year-old daughter who will enter a public childcare center in April, said that the city’s notion regarding taking measures to reverse the declining birthrate is just lip service and that under the current situation, young people cannot have and raise children without anxiety.
Zitsukata Nobuko of the national liaison council of childcare-related groups pointed out that the privatization of public day nurseries are being carried out nationwide, but in most cases, municipal governments keep a few public facilities. She said that the Higashikurume City’s plan to have no public childcare facilities is exceptionally outrageous. She criticized the city government for neglecting to fulfill its responsibility to act in the interest of its residents. In order to resolve the problem of children unable to enter childcare centers, municipal governments need to take the responsibility to improve childcare policies, she stressed.
