Recent disturbing footage of kindergarteners being subject to physical abuse by their caretakers at a daycare center in Ho Chi Minh City has raised the question of whether it is time to tighten the licensing of such household facilities.

Located in the city’s District 12, the Mam Xanh childcare facility is run by the owner and two assistants who provide care for 30 to 40 children between two and five years old.

Such household daycares are not uncommon across Vietnam, especially in neighborhoods with a high density of blue-collar workers who cannot afford to send their children to a public kindergarten, either because it is too far away from their workplace or the tuition is not as cheap.

But conditions at such facilities are often questionable, while reports of children’s maltreatment by their caretakers are no longer scarce.

In 2013, nursemaids at a preschool in Ho Chi Minh City’s Thu Duc District were accused of frequently abusing and torturing preschoolers, including holding the children upside down over a barrel of water and threatening to drop them into it.

Earlier this year, authorities ordered the closure of a daycare in Go Vap District where nursemaids had been found to use violent measures to force-feed the kids, including pushing their heads backwards and shoving spoons of food into their crying mouths.

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Piece of cake

“There are a whole range of strict regulations concerning the establishment of kindergartens, and they are subject to frequent inspections. But the same cannot be said about household daycares,” said M., owner of a private kindergarten in Ho Chi Minh City.

According to M., it only costs a little more than VND30 million ($1,300) to open such a facility.

“That includes the costs of renovating your house to add spaces for sleeping and dining, buying some toys, and making over the kitchen to conform with standards.” M. explained. “That’s all it takes to be licensed.”

Chung Bich Phuong, a former education official in Ho Chi Minh City’s Tan Phu District, acknowledged the fact that some daycares even bypass authorities by hiring certified nursemaids at first, only to replace them with unqualified ones after having been licensed to cut down on monthly costs

This explains the low tuition fee advertised by such facilities compared to more formal kindergartens, which is also their main selling point for low-income families.

Even worse, more than 5,000 preschools in 50 cities and provinces across Vietnam were found unlicensed in a 2014 report by the Ministry of Education and Training.

That number translated into 34 percent of the private preschools that take care of kids under 36 months at the time of the report.

A kindergartener is forced to carry plastic chairs on his head as a punishment at the Mam Xanh daycare center in Ho Chi Minh City. Photo: Tuoi Tre

Solution needed

According to Nguyen Hong Ha, vice chairman of a socio-cultural committee of Ho Chi Minh City’s People’s Council, the long-term solution to this issue would be to reduce household daycare while raising the number of larger-scale kindergartens for ease of management.

“In the meantime, we should encourage locals to join hands with authorities in keeping these household facilities in check,” Ha said.

“In addition, requiring the daycares to install surveillance cameras is also hoped to put a stop to this aching problem of child abuse.”

Ho Chi Minh City authorities have already set out to implement the measure, after the municipal People’s Committee convened a meeting with relevant agencies on Monday afternoon to seek solutions to child abuse.

The city had since 2013 put in place state-funded training programs for managers, teachers and nursemaids at private preschool facilities to improve their professional skills as well as moral standards.

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