Japan Press Weekly

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2008 December 17 - 22 [WELFARE]

Stop government ‘reform’ of childcare services

Akahata Editorial (excerpts)

With concerns about maintaining jobs and livelihoods growing, the public demand for better childcare services is increasing day by day.

Local governments are required to provide childcare services under Article 24 of the Child Welfare Law, which provides that if children are unable to receive sufficient care due to the need for parents to work, they should be taken care of at childcare facilities.

The government is now pushing ahead with adversely reforming childcare services to allow both the national and local governments to abandon their responsibility to provide childcare services in disregard of opposition from parents and childcare workers.

Under the government’s plan, local governments are only required to take responsibility to determine parents’ need to have their children taken care of at child care centers and to pay subsidies to childcare facilities. Local governments will have no direct responsibility to provide childcare services.

The system of fees for services will replace the present system in which parents pay fees according to their incomes on a scale established by each local government.

Parents will have to have direct contracts with day-care centers, so children in low-income households and disabled children may be refused entry.

What is more, the government plans to deregulate the current minimum standards for the number of childcare workers and size of facilities, considered to be necessary elements for children’s development. The government also wants to allow corporations to enter the childcare service market.

Although the Health, Labor, and Welfare Ministry insists that this new plan will provide childcare services for all households with children, it is questionable whether all parents can receive adequate services because they have to pay the full cost of the services they receive regardless of their income.

The government should act responsibly and increase the budget for childcare and build more childcare services facilities.

More than a million signatures in support of the demand for better childcare services have been collected in just four months after the signature campaign started.

It is unacceptable that the government continue to forcibly push this adverse reform.

The Japanese Communist Party opposes this government reform plan which allows the national and local governments to deny responsibility to provide childcare services and to do their utmost to improve childcare services.