Welfare minister decides to deregulate minimum standards for size of childcare centers

Japan Press Weekly

Japan Press Service Co., Ltd. is the only news agency providing information of progressive, democratic movements in Japan

Welfare minister decides to deregulate minimum standards for size of childcare centers

Labor, Health, and Welfare Minister Nagatsuma Akira on November 4 announced the plan to deregulate the current minimum standards for the size of child care centers in large cities under the pretext of reducing the number of children on the waiting lists to enter child care centers.

The argument used to justify this move claims that if the minimum standards for the size of child care centers is abolished, more centers will be established and the number of children on waiting lists will be decreased. This is groundless. Rather, repealing the minimum standards will allow the national government to shift its financial responsibility for child-care services to local governments.

The real aim of scrapping the minimum standards is to provide the financial incentive for private companies to enter child-care services by enabling them to build child care centers at less cost.

Under the current minimum standards, the space required per child aged 2 and over is 1.98 square meters. This means that one nursery staff person looks after six 2-year-old children in a room of about 11.6 square meters. Childcare workers and experts say that this standard is actually inadequate and should be improved.

About 350 parents and childcare center workers later on the same day petitioned the welfare ministry and political parties, including the Japanese Communist Party, to cancel the attempt to deregulate the minimum standards for the size of child care centers and initiate an adverse reform of the child-care system.

The Japan Society of Research on Early Childhood Care and Education, Japan’s largest study group regarding child-care, also submitted to Welfare Minister Nagatsuma an appeal opposing the move to eliminate the minimum standards for child care centers.

The appeal points out that in order to guarantee “the minimum standards of wholesome and cultured living” to children, the current minimum standards for child care centers was established based on the Japanese Constitution. The appeal warns that by scrapping the minimum standards, “the government will abandon its responsibility for child-care service” and “it will cause a possible collapse of the Japanese child-care system which has been developed in collaboration between the national and local governments.”

- Akahata, November 5, 2009