국공립보육시설 확충 및 기능 강화 방안

Abstract

In Korea, only 5% of child care centers are provided by government which cover about 10% of the children in centers. Parents prefer the public child care centers as government provide institutional subsidy and guide them to manage according to the manual, compare to private centers.

Last few years government made effort to increase the public centers through various means such as building new ones, transferring centers in public housing complex, purchasing private centers, utilizing public buildings such as primary schools, local offices, universities, etc. In spite of the effort the achievement is not high enough to meet the needs of the parents.

This study aimed to review the current status of public child care centers and to suggest policy means for functioning and augmenting public child care centers.

Main research methods used to collect data was telephone and mail survey on directors of child care centers and local government officials.

This study suggest to build community-based large child care centers which function as comprehensive services provision centers for children and their families in low income brackets, support staffs in centers, manage in-home care providers and provide information and counselling services to parents who care their children all day long. The public centers was suggested to function differently, comparing to private child care centers. They was urged to provide services for children with special needs such as working mothers, handicapped, younger aged etc.

It also suggested several means of increasing public centers. At first, financial support from central government needs to be increased. Now, local government take almost of the financial burden, which is the most strong negative factor of building new one. And in order to save the investment for building construction, policy of fee-free-rent of space from public organization as university, government office, schools would be recommended. For the child care centers in public housing complex, it was recommended to increase the financial support for remodelling and purchasing facilities.

Now, public child care centers are entrusted to welfare corporation, public organization or private persons according to local government"s decisions. This study suggested the central government to give manual for the decision making process including public collection of committee members, entrust period, indicators of evaluating the entrust applicants, etc.