2016-04-22
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The policy of childcare all-in-all extends the original subsidy for childcare of children ranging 0 to 2 years old to children 6 years old, and the kindergarten entrance subsidy for children 5 years old is extended further to younger children 2 years old; therefore, all of the kindergartens, childcare centers and employing babysitters etc., are included in the scope of the subsidy. Moreover, for children under age of 6 from disadvantaged families, there are additional subsidies for the care and education of children.
In addition, to satisfy the needs of parents working in other cities and counties, the city government further extends the scope of the subsidy in order to allow parents with their residence recorded in Taichung City but working at three counties and cities of Nantou, Changhua and Miaoli to be eligible to apply for the subsidy as long as their children are sent to the contracted childcare centers in the aforementioned three counties and cities, or satisfy the requirement for subsidy requesting that the kindergarten is within the distance of 10km from the work place of the parents to apply for the subsidy.
After the implementation of the new policy, the number of children sent to childcare centers or under the care of babysitters as well as registered at kindergartens all show a significant trend of growth. According to the statics of the Social Affairs Bureau and the Education Bureau, the number of children benefitting from the childcare expense subsidy increased from the original 6277 to 7513 with an growth of 20.65%. The number of children registered in kindergartens in 2015 is 43,848, and comparing to 34,345 registered children in 2014, there is an increase of 9503 children with a growth of 27.7%.
As the number of children with benefits increases, relevant industries also grow with development. According to statistics of the Social Affairs Bureau, since 2013, the number of contracted childcare centers cooperating with the city government increased from 74 to 98 with a growth of 32.43%; the number of contracted babysitters increased from 2187 to 3101 with a growth further reaching 41.79%.
To understand the outcome of the implementation, last year, the city government also assigned the National Chung Cheng University to conduct the research on the “Investigation of Taichung City Parity Childcare Policy Implementation Current Status and Requirement” . The result shows that the city government has established a complete childcare system for 0-6 year old such that the percentage of family utilizing outdoor care in Taichung City reaches 16.06%, higher than the average of 9.83% for the entire region of Taiwan, in which the agency childcare service percentage is 4.15% much higher than the average of 0.17 for the region of Taiwan.
The result of the interviews on the users of the “Parity Childcare Expense Subsidy” shows that the level of satisfaction reaches 92.19%. More than 80% of parents are able to send and pick up children within 15 minutes, indicating a sufficient convenience for parents. The parents are quite certain that the service of childcare provides them the advantages of “being able to continue focus on jobs”, “capable of having qualitied work and childcare”, “allowing full-time parents to work comfortably” and “professionally trained babysitters having improved professional skills with certification, capable of caring children to allow parents to focus on works and jobs”. Presently, approximately 20% of parents attend the care of the children on their own also expect to send their next baby for the care under babysitters or childcare centers.
unit:綜合企劃科
