Serious shortcomings in childcare, kindergarten centres - study

A new study has confirmed the existence of a number of serious shortcomings in childcare and small kindergarten centres in Malta. These include lack of safety precautions, staff with minimal qualifications, inadequate learning programmes and a high number of children being looked after by one carer.

These issues were highlighted in comments made by parents questioned for a survey and in visits to centres carried out by researcher Dr Valerie Sollars of the University of Malta's Faculty of Education.

The observations showed a "very pressing need" for the area to be well-regulated by the competent authorities in order to ensure good, quality care, said Dr Sollars.

Her research, which was presented in a public talk at the university yesterday, was conducted in 10 childcare centres and 13 small kindergarten centres earlier this year. Some 520 parents responded to a questionnaire sent to about 900 parents making use of these centres.

Dr Sollars said the evidence showed that the parents needed to be better informed about the options available. There also needed to be clear criteria regulating the standards of the services provided and the information should be accessible to all concerned.

For example, one parent reported feeling secure in using a particular child-minding service because it was registered with the education division, ensuring, the parent said, "that educational and administrative rules are under control".

In fact, said Dr Sollars, "to date, there is no official authority regulating day care centres, licensing premises, the people who run them or the people who are employed at such centres".

"Childcare centres do not require a licence from the education division or any department within social policy. To be set up they only need a permit from the Malta Environment and Planning Authority."

One service provider mentioned how she had been operating a childcare centre for about six years and when she took the initiative and phoned departments to see why her centre had never been inspected, she was told that there hadn't been the need since no complaint had been made!

Kindergartens are regulated by the Education Division. Health and sanitary personnel do inspect the premises before a license is issued, but it appears that visits by competent personnel take place infrequently once a licence is given, noted Dr Sollars.

Some parents, she said, were aware of the shortcomings, as was evidenced by some of the comments they made: "... kindergarten and child minding centres in Malta lack safety precautions immensely. We are surprised how some of those we visited are given a license".

Other comments were similar to the following: "There are not many facilities which offer quality childcare for infants. For working parents this makes for a very difficult situation. The ratio of teacher to child is very low which means there are too many children in a class with one teacher, especially for very young children. Teachers are usually not professionally qualified."

Dr Sollars said the issue of qualifications was one of the most serious to emerge from her research. She found that childcare centres invariably preferred to employ mothers in their late 30s and early 40s as child minders, rather than younger women fresh out of a childcare course.

"Experience should not replace training," she held. "In some cases, the service providers themselves have no formal training which prepares them for the job and they learn through on-the-job experience."

In private kindergarten centres, a regulation that has been in force only for the last couple of years states that new staff must have the formal qualification assigned to kindergarten assistants who have completed a two-year course offered by the Education Division. However, many of the 'teachers' who were recruited earlier only possess a number of 'O' levels.

"Research abroad has shown that the better qualified the staff, the better the learning programme they can offer."

Indeed, it seems that many kindergartens pay mere "lip service" to the principles that should constitute a good learning programme. Such a programme incorporates play, creativity, and child-directed and initiated activities.

"A playful, stimulating atmosphere is one which allows for and promotes mobility, creativity, and imagination. Such activities broaden children's experiences and promote their development in several aspects.

"Contrary to such child-directed centres, we have an abundance of places where very young children are filling out workbooks and doing other mundane tasks in an atmosphere that is much too formal and teacher-directed."

Often, she added, this situation was driven by parents' own demands. "One service provider insisted that parents of children as young as two or three years of age expect and demand homework!

"While some parents did view play as being an important ingredient, others thought that if their children learned how to read and write at such an early age it was somehow a better centre."

One parent wrote that prior to registering her child at a kindergarten centre, she was interested in knowing the pass rate for junior lyceum exams of the primary school run by the same centre.

"There definitely is a need for better education among the parents to inform them about how children learn best and what matters at a young age," maintained Dr Sollars.

She also spoke of the need for clear guidelines on the minimum age for accepting children at kindergarten centres. "Some private kindergartens are accepting children who are still in their nappies. Some parents want these kindergarten centres to help them potty-train their children."

While acknowledging that such assistance may be available, Dr Sollars said it needed to be recognised that kindergarten centres were not necessarily properly equipped to cater for such demands.

Parents' expectations about the centres varied. A substantial number did acknowledge the importance of children's socialisation, especially for those children who have no siblings. However, the evidence showed that some parents, and indeed child-minders, had unrealistic expectations which in turn reflected a lack of knowledge of how children learn.

Only 18 per cent of the parents questioned chose a centre on the basis of information about the programme offered. The choice of centre was made on the basis of recommendations by relatives and friends or because the centre was close to home.

And in spite of the fact that just over half of the parents never visited centres prior to making a final choice, nearly 90 per cent claimed it was easy to decide on a specific centre.

Dr Sollars insisted that criteria are urgently needed to ensure that both childcare and kindergarten centres are of good quality, not only in terms of the safety and hygiene of the premises but also on the basis of the learning programme offered to the children and the qualifications of staff manning the centres.

Main reasons for use of centres

These are some of the other interesting findings that emerge from Dr Sollars' research.

¤ When parents were asked why they send their child to a childcare centre, the largest number (46.8 per cent) said it was "to continue to work". The second most common reason was "for the child's social benefit". On the other hand, social benefit was the reason listed by 64.5 per cent of parents making use of a kindergarten, as opposed to just 11.7 per cent who said it was to carry on working.

¤ Asked about the age at which their children started attending a childcare or kindergarten centre, 42.1 per cent said it was between 24 and 30 months, followed by 27.8 per cent who said it was between 31 and 33 months. 6.6 per cent sent their children to a centre in the first year of their lives.

¤ There was an adequate to high level of satisfaction, with both childcare centres and kindergartens, expressed by parents with regard to fees (most said they were "just right"), staff handling of children, the stimulation provided, safety and hygiene, the reception given to children, information about the children's behaviour, staff helpfulness and location, among other factors.

¤ Some negative comments expressed about particular centres or kindergartens included the lack of open space, poor ventilation, no windows, cramped conditions, payment of fees even when children are sick or during holidays, opening times, poor feedback.