Haphazard and ill-conceived government policies lead to a waste of taxpayers’ money and give rise to unnecessary problems. For an example, one need not look further than the government’s child care policy.
Starting next month, the government will provide a subsidy to all families with a child under 24 months old, regardless of their income, if they enroll them at a day care center. Previously, the subsidy was offered to families in the bottom 70 percent of the income scale.
As expected, applications for the subsidy are surging. Last year, the Ministry of Health and Welfare received 147,000 applications. It expects the total to reach between 300,000 and 340,000 this year.
As a result, child care enrollment is likely to soar this year. These days many child care centers in large cities are crowded with parents who want to register their children. Especially, day care facilities operated by the central or local governments are packed with parents as they offer better services than private centers. In some areas, people have to wait months or even years to secure a spot at a public nursery.
To make matters worse, some 5,000 private nurseries will close this week to protest the government’s refusal to increase their child care fees and the salaries of their teachers.
Although demand for nursery places is shooting up, the Ministry of Health and Welfare is against constructing new child care centers.
According to the ministry, many child care centers have room for capacity expansion. This means they can admit more children if they expand their capacity. The ministry says this means the expected increase in enrollment can be met without building new facilities.
The ministry may be right. But its approach fails to address the biggest complaint that parents have about child care ― the shortage of facilities that provide quality care services in an adequate environment.
There are good reasons that people are willing to wait for years to get a place in public nurseries ― they charge less than private ones but offer higher-quality services. As public facilities pay their staff more, they can attract more experienced and qualified teachers.
Private institutes cannot pay their teachers as much as public centers do because they have to earn a profit. They cannot increase fees as they please because the government sets a ceiling on them.
The government once floated the idea of liberalizing fees to pave the way for the emergence of high-standard private centers. But it was written off as a step that would benefit only the rich.
Under these circumstances, expanding public nurseries should be the government’s top priority. Currently, public institutes account for less than 6 percent of all child care facilities in Korea. The figure compares badly with the 75 percent in Sweden, 55 percent in Japan and 40 percent in Germany. This year, the government plans to build a mere 10 new state-run nurseries.
The government cites several reasons for being cautious about building new public centers. First, the cost problem. A new nursery with capacity for 50 children costs 3 billion won on average. The projected long-term decrease in the number of children also makes the government hesitant to set up new facilities.
Policymakers also note that demand for nursery openings will decline starting next year as the government will provide a child care subsidy to families that choose in-home care for their children.
Another potent reason ― probably the most important ― is the strong opposition by private nurseries to the proliferation of public facilities.
However, in sharp contrast to the government’s timidity, Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon recently unveiled a bold initiative. He said his city would create 80 new public child care centers this year and 200 more by 2014. Park’s plan calls for raising the share of public centers, which would make up 30 percent of the total by 2020.
One notable element in Park’s scheme is a plan to take over outdated private centers and upgrade them into public ones. This is a judicious approach as it could ease private nurseries’ concerns about the increased number of public institutes.
We believe the mayor has taken the right approach to the child care problem. The government should have adopted his approach before deciding to expand the subsidy program. But better late than never. It needs to emulate Park’s well-wrought scheme.
