While the expansion of government support for childcare costs has strengthened the public childcare system, it is still important and necessary to ask whether the public system of childcare provides reliable and quality services.
This study has been conducted to develop suggestions for the improvement of both the quality and the nature of national and public childcare center in Seoul. To this end, this study identifies and analyzes problems with consigned management of these public facilities.
This study surveys the existing literature, in Korea and abroad, on the consigned management of national and public childcare center. Next, it identifies the current status and problems of the consigned management of national and public childcare center in Seoul on the basis of quantitative survey results (taken from 234 managers of national and public pre-schools in Seoul). Third, this study identifies the problems with the quality of childcare services provided at these facilities and makes suggestions for improvement on the basis of a qualitative investigation (involving group meetings of experts, focus group interviews, and a written survey).
The findings of this study can be summarized as follows:
First, regarding the satisfaction rates with different types of consignees and numbers of consignments, survey respondents were most dissatisfied with school foundations as consignees, and also with consignees who have run consigned childcare center for three consecutive terms. The biggest factor contributing to dissatisfaction was the anxiety over employment, irrespective of the consignee type or the number of consignments taken.
Second, regarding the problems with the consigned management of national and public childcare center, the three main factors of dissatisfaction were: (1) lack of public accountability in the consignees; (2) partiality and unfairness in evaluation and selection of consignees; and (3) the absence of objectivity in the criteria used to select consignees.
Third, these problems need to be solved by: setting up an organization tasked with settling disputes over consignment decisions; ensuring the transparency and openness of each district office’s process through which its childcare policy committee members are chosen; and revising and updating the criteria for consignment. Furthermore, the forms of management need to be diversified to include direct management by the City of Seoul and cooperatives in order to ensure improvement in the quality of childcare services at national and public childcare center in Seoul.