저출산에 대응한 어린이집·유치원 공급체계 전환과 중장기 적정수준 연구

Abstract

This study diagnoses the supply status of child care centers and kindergartens and the supply policy of the central government and local governments, and presents the direction on the supply system for child care centers and kindergartens to address the future low fertility issue. Moreover, the study selects areas to first establish public childcare centers and kindergartens and projects the appropriate supply scale. For the research method, this study examined and collected related laws, systems, supply and demand plans, and previous researches on the supply of child care centers and kindergartens, utilized materials such as the of registered Ministry of the Interior or, by KOSTAT, and the current and total number of children in child care centers and kindergartens, and the demand for childcare to estimate the demand and appropriate supply for childcare centers and kindergartens for the next 5 years. Furthermore, this study collected and analyzed public childcare centers, kindergartens expansion cases that are being promoted by the local government by considering aspects such as the region's characteristics and financial conditions that are being conducted separately from the plan to expand public childcare centers and kindergartens by the central government. At the same time, an online survey with 491 public childcare centers, private and home childcare centers and 443 public and private kindergartens was held.

Based on the results of this study, recommendations are as follows.

First, the policy to expand public child care centers and kindergartens should be promoted through cooperation with the private sector. The number of public child care centers and kindergartenss should be increased through cooperation with private sector, and a system to manage the service quality of centers converting to public-type child care centers should be established such as providing long-term leases of free leases. Second, an expansion target should be established and the policy should be executed accordingly by considering the characteristics of each region in order to minimize side effects such as the decrease of the enrollment ratio and the competition between public child care centers due to the oversupply of public centers. Third, provincial and municipal government should establish a plan for the provision of childcare and the management and the supervision should be done by the central government to conduct the analysis of childcare supply and demand. The government should regularly carry out child care demand surveys considering the rapid increase of population migration due to recent urban development and etc. Fifth, the sample collection, the survey method, and the survey period for each metropolitan and provincial Offices of Education are very different depending on the region. Therefore, the Ministry of Education should enhance the guideline of the kindergarten acceptance survey, build and operate a council comprising of 17 metropolitan and provincial Offices of Education to minimize the gap between metropolitan and provincial regions. Sixth, when establishing the child care supply plan and the children acceptance plan, a council should be established to discuss matters that require coordination between metropolitan and provincial cities, countries and districts and Metropolitan and Provincial offices. Seventh, a legal basis for the eviction of private home child care centers should be established. A standard to automatically close a childcare center should be established in the event that the center does not meet a certain criteria, such as having an enrollment ratio of less than 30% for more than 9 months, or a center being operated solely by a director for more than 12 months. Eighth, a detail standard to strengthen the publicness of private kindergartens such as public-type kindergartens and kindergartens purchased by the government should be specified. Ninth, the expansion scale of public childcare centers and kindergartens should be adjusted accordingly following the review of the fertility rate and the closure rate of private childcare centers and kindergartens. Tenth, in order to meet the goal of increasing the number of public child care centers to 40%, it is necessary to expand a total of 7,777 centers that can enroll 70 children (the average number of total students in public child care centers as of the end of 2017) by 2022. In addition, in order to achieve the goal of increasing the number of public kindergartens to 40%, 10,588 classes are needed by applying the average value of the class placement standard based on 2018.