No.68 Measures to Address Waiting List for Nursery Schools

The situation of Parenting in Inagi City used to involve many multi-generational households and full-time housewives, with most children attending Kindergarten for only a short time during the day while being raised at home. However, with the increase in nuclear families, the advancement of women's participation in society, and the growing number of families where both parents work full-time, more and more children are being placed in Nursery School for long hours during the day.
Since 1969, the city has been sequentially establishing public Licensed Childcare Centers as shown in the table below. Additionally, due to the increasing demand, it has become difficult to meet the needs solely with public facilities. Therefore, since the Heisei era, private Licensed Childcare Centers have been sequentially established and relocated (privatized) in conjunction with the opening of new town areas, resulting in a current total of 4 public centers and 10 private centers.
However, the reality is that we are still unable to fully meet the needs. Since establishing new nursery schools cannot be done overnight, we have implemented various measures such as expanding the capacity of existing schools, increasing flexibility in enrollment, providing temporary childcare, utilizing Home Daycare Providers, and developing facilities other than Licensed Childcare Centers (7 centers, 214 children) and Certified Children’s Centers (1 center, 114 children) to expand the number of children accepted and alleviate the waiting list. As a result of these measures, we have increased the number of accepted children by approximately 700 from fiscal year 2004 to the current year.
As a result of these efforts, the number of children waiting for admission under the new standards was zero for two consecutive years in fiscal years 2015 and 2016. However, in fiscal year 2017, the number of applicants significantly increased compared to the previous year, leading to a waiting list. It is believed that the rarity of having zero waiting children in the Tokyo area has led to an increase in people moving in with the expectation of enrolling their children in a Nursery School.
By the way, there has been no unified method for counting the number of children waiting for admission, and there have been differences among municipalities. Just because the number of waiting children is zero does not mean that everyone can be admitted to their desired school, and I understand that there are various criticisms regarding this. However, please also understand that the capacity rate of Childcare Centers is high compared to neighboring cities.
In light of this situation, we have decided to implement emergency measures this fiscal year and submitted a supplementary budget to the June 2017 council meeting. We will promote the flexibility of existing nursery school capacities within the fiscal year, implement an increase of 27 in capacity, and provide subsidies for the rental of housing to secure childcare workers in private nursery schools.
In the future, we plan to work on the following initiatives.

1. The Licensed Childcare Center in front of Inagi Station will transition to a Licensed Nursery School in April 2018, increasing the capacity from 30 to three times that number.
2. Efforts will be made to establish a Nursery School and other facilities in the Minamiyama Land Readjustment Project area by the fiscal year 2019.
3. Continuing negotiations for the lease of the former Omaru municipal housing site, we will strive to establish a Nursery School by the year 2020.
4. Efforts will be made to establish a Nursery School and other facilities in the Sakahama Kodara Land Readjustment Project area by the year 2021.

The city will continue to address the elimination of waiting children in Nursery Schools as one of our top priorities, so we ask for your understanding and cooperation.

History of the Opening of Licensed Childcare Centers

Annual	Childcare Center Name	Capacity
1969	City First (currently Nakajima Yushi)	75
1971	Hirao	195
1972	City Hall Second (currently Hongo Yushi)	78
1975	City Third	125
1976	Matsuba	103
1976	City Hall Fourth	70
1976	City Hall Fifth	67
1987	Municipal Sixth	100
1989	Koyodai	130
1992	Shiroyama	100
1995	Momi no Ki Nagamine	110
1999	Wakabadai Baobab	110
2002	Momi no Ki Wakabadai	120
2011	Yuushi Nakajima	140
2015	Shiroyama Minamiyama	125
2015	Yushi Hongo	150

The capacity for each facility is as it was at the time of opening.