Japan Press Weekly

Tweet

2011 February 23 - March 1 [TOKYO]

Proposed by Koike, state-owned land to be used for childcare centers

Akahata Sunday edition

Tokyo’s Setagaya Ward will open two public day-care centers on state-owned land this spring. The proposal to accomplish this made by Koike Akira, a candidate in the upcoming Tokyo gubernatorial election, has borne fruit.

At a House of Councilors Welfare Committee meeting on March 18, 2010, Koike, who was a Japanese Communist Party Upper House member at that time, demanded that the national government sell or lease some of its land at reasonable prices to local governments in Tokyo so that they can build more public day-care centers and reduce the number of children waiting to enter such facilities. A Finance Ministry official promised to consider adopting the proposal.

In Setagaya Ward, the number of children on the waiting list for childcare centers has more than tripled in the last five years. The ward office built 24 public day-care facilities in FY 2009 and 2010.

“Koike’s proposal in the Diet of using state-owned land has facilitated the building of additional public facilities for children,” said Nakazato Mitsuo, a JCP representative of the Setagaya Ward Assembly.

Residents’ demand for more public childcare facilities has also achieved results in other municipalities in Tokyo.

Located in the waterfront area of Tokyo Bay, Koto Ward has witnessed a rush of construction of high-rise apartment buildings. As its population increases by around 10,000 every year, a surging number of parents are unable to find day-care facilities to enroll their children.

The ward government, in less than four years between July 2007 and January 2011, built 15 public childcare centers capable of caring for 1,597 children. This was realized by purchasing land from the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and requiring large-scale developers to offer a part of their land to the ward office in order to open day-care centers.

In Higashimurayama City, the city office decided to build a day-care center at Tama-Zenshoen, the national sanatorium for Hansen’s disease. The national government agreed to lease the land at an affordable price to the municipality.

These achievements made by local governments in their effort to reduce the number of children unable to enter day-care centers are in sharp contrast with the Tokyo Metropolitan Government’s policies in this regard.

Under Governor Ishihara Shintaro, the metropolitan government in 2001 set its own standards for day-care centers that are lower than the national standards in regard to minimum size and number of staff. Under the system, it promotes private business participation in childcare services instead of running more day-care facilities itself.

As of April last year, 8,435 children in Tokyo could not enter day-care centers due to the lack of facilities.