No.68 Measures to eliminate waiting lists for children at nursery schools

Regarding the child-rearing situation in Inagi City, in the past there were many multigenerational households living together and many full-time housewives, and many people raised their children at home and sent their children to kindergarten for a short time during the day. However, with the trend towards nuclear families, the increasing participation of women in society, and the increasing number of families in which both parents work full-time, more and more people are sending their children to daycare centers for long hours during the day.
As shown in the table below, the city has successively established new public licensed nursery schools since 1962. In addition, since it is difficult for public schools alone to respond to the ever-increasing needs, since the Heisei era, with the opening of new town areas, private licensed nursery schools have been successively established, relocated and rebuilt (privatized), and currently there are four public nursery schools.・There are 10 private schools.
However, the reality is that we are still not able to fully meet the needs. Establishing a new nursery school is not something that can be done overnight, so we are expanding the existing nursery school to increase its capacity, making the capacity more flexible, offering temporary childcare, providing daycare moms, certified nursery schools (214 children in 7 schools), and certified nursery schools (1 nursery school). We have expanded the number of children we can accept and have worked to eliminate the number of children on waiting lists. Through these measures, we have increased the number of people accepted by approximately 700 people between 2004 and this year.
Thanks to these efforts, the number of children on waiting lists based on the new standard was zero for two consecutive years (2015 and 2015), but in 2017, the number of applicants for admission increased significantly compared to last year, resulting in children on waiting lists. I did. It is rare for there to be no waiting list for children in Tokyo, so this may be due to an increase in the number of people transferring to nursery schools in hopes of enrolling.
By the way, until now there was no unified method for counting the number of children on waiting lists, and each municipality had differences. We understand that there may be various criticisms because even though there are no children on the waiting list, it does not mean that all children will be able to enroll in the kindergarten of their choice. However, please understand that our nursery school capacity is higher than other neighboring cities.
Under these circumstances, we decided to take emergency measures this year, and submitted a supplementary budget to Congress in June 2017. By the end of the fiscal year, we will be increasing the capacity of existing nursery schools by increasing the number of children by 27 people and providing housing rental subsidies to secure childcare workers at private nursery schools.
We also plan to take the following measures in the future.
(1) The certified nursery school in front of Inagi Station will be transformed into a licensed nursery school in April 2018, and the number of children will be tripled from 30.
(2) Efforts will be made to open a nursery school etc. within the Nanzan land readjustment project area by 2019.
(3) Continue negotiations to lease the former site of Daimaru Metropolitan Housing, and strive to open a nursery school etc. by 2020.
(4) Efforts will be made to open a nursery school, etc. in the Kodara land readjustment project area in Sakahama by 2021.
The city will continue to address the issue of eliminating childcare waiting lists at nursery schools as one of its most important issues, so we ask for your understanding and cooperation.