Japan Press Weekly

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2014 April 9 - 15 [WELFARE]

Use of unlicensed help will reduce quality of childcare services: JCP Tamura

Japanese Communist Party representative Tamura Tomoko argued that to utilize unlicensed childcare assistants in order to cover a labor shortage only because they have experience in childrearing will decrease the quality of the country’s childcare program as a whole, demanding that studies on the feasibility of such a system be stopped.

At a House of Councilors Audit Committee meeting on April 14, Tamura presented the welfare ministry’s data which shows that 15 out of 19 fatal accidents in daycare centers last year occurred at unauthorized facilities where uncertified staffers were working.

She quoted a mother who had lost her 5-month-old baby while in a day nursery as saying, “With the baby dead, I came to realize that all the nursery staff, even at temporary children’s playrooms, should have professional expertise.”

The JCP lawmaker warned that the creation of a system to use unlicensed child-minders when the number of infant deaths in daycare centers has been on the increase will backpedal on efforts to improve the quality of childcare services.

She pointed out that the introduction of such a system will also cause wage differences and said, “That will never contribute to better working conditions for childcare workers.”

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In opposition to the establishment of a system to make use of unlicensed nursery assistants, a group of parents on April 8 submitted a letter to the welfare minister and the state minister in charge of support for childrearing.

Nine other organizations of parents working to help increase authorized centers in Tokyo and Saitama City joined this action.

They argued that to take advantage of persons with experience in childrearing will be useless in solving the problem of many children being rejected from access to daycare centers and that the proposed system will deprive parents of the environment to feel safe to work outside while leaving children at day nurseries.

They requested that all childcare services be provided by licensed workers and working conditions be improved so that nursery workers can continue to work.

More than 600,000 “potential” childcare workers have been allegedly forced out of their profession because of heavy workloads and low wages at childcare centers.