No. 32 Creating a place for children to hang out after school

(public information Inagi June 15, 2014 issue publication)

In April 2014, we started an after-school children's classroom as a new project for the new fiscal year.
For some time, Inagi City has been working to improve the "Children's Center/Gakudo Club" as an after-school measure for elementary school students. A children's center is one of the child welfare facilities stipulated in the Child Welfare Act, and aims to provide healthy play, promote health, and enrich the emotions. Gakudo Club is a facility that supports play and daily life for 1st to 3rd grade elementary school students who do not have guardians at home after school. Recently, the number of dual-income parents is increasing, and the demand for children's houses and after-school clubs is steadily increasing.
The children's center has no capacity, but the number of people that can be accepted is limited by the facility. After-school clubs have a limited number of children, and there are children on waiting lists for admission. However, all of these services require dedicated facilities, and it is not easy to increase the number of people accepted or to establish new facilities. Therefore, with the cooperation of the board of education and each elementary school, we decided to start a project to make effective use of existing school facilities such as empty classrooms and gymnasiums.
Although they are similar, the children's center and after-school club are under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, and the after-school children's classroom is under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. Some cities and wards have moved to integrate these, but children's centers are open-access facilities, after-school children's clubs are childcare facilities, and after-school children's classrooms are a project to provide a place to stay after school and watch over them. Due to differences in the number of instructors and other personnel to be assigned and the services provided, the current policy is not to merge. This new project will cost more than 50 million yen a year even at the trial stage, but we decided to implement both without abolishing the traditional after-school club.
The after-school children's class does not have a fixed capacity and is free of charge for non-insurance participants. increase. This fiscal year, we will conduct trial implementation targeting 1st to 3rd graders in districts (8 out of 11 schools) where there are waiting lists for after-school clubs. We will consider expanding the target up to the 6th grade.
For the sound development of children who will support the future of Inagi, we will develop measures based on everyone's opinions, so we ask for your understanding.