Govt day care centre offers little excitement to children
KARACHI, April 8: With paint peeling off, an ill-equipped kitchen, no doctor to assist in case of emergency, ill-paid staff, the only government day care centre in the city does not appear to be a very exciting place for children.
Comprising a hall with a small section for the manager, the day care centre has cots covered with mosquito-nets. However, the bed linen does not look very clean. Besides, one also finds children who are too big to sleep in the cots. The kitchen is nothing more than a table on which a few cups and bottles rest along with a microwave. But there is no facility to boil or sterilise the utensils used to feed the children. The play area has fewer toys than what the brochure of the day care centre says it does.
It has been three years since the government established a day care centre in the city. Located inside the women development department’s building off Sharea Faisal, people hardly know about its existence, with the result that few working women come to it.
Though the women development department’s website claims to have 30 children enrolled with the centre, currently there are only 11 registered children. However, it only had seven when this reporter visited the place recently. The government-run centre accepts children from the age of two months to three years and charge an amount ranging between Rs1,500 and Rs2,500 according to their age. It provides diapers and baby food.
The staff, said to have been selected from the training course offered by women development department, look after infants from 8.30am to 5.30pm.
The manager, Dr Sadia Farnaz, says: Care-givers are hired on the basis of training and their job experiences in nurseries, hospitals or schools.
She added that recruitment advertisements were placed in the newspapers and staff were selected on the basis of their qualification.
Working in the day care centre for almost two years, Mahnaz, however, says: I was selected after I completed the day care training course offered by the Women Development Department.
The care-giver who works on a meagre monthly salary of Rs4,000 is a matriculate and has no prior experience of handling children, except for what she learnt in the course. She complains about her salary and says it is difficult for her to make ends meet as she also spends Rs12 to Rs15 on bus fare everyday. About her job at the day care centre, she says: We feed children and keep them clean. Parents are given a feeder which they have to bring with their child the next day. And the child is given milk or solid food (a pack of noodles) according to their age, she explains.
The manager, Dr Sadia Farnaz, hopes that the salaries will be revived soon. The aya, she says, is paid Rs3,000 while the care-giver Rs4,000 a month at present. I myself get Rs10,000, which was the amount I was taking when I used to work for the day care centre in the capacity of a part-time doctor. The current manager of the day care centre was hired earlier as a doctor, but then was given the charge of a manager. And since then, there has been no doctor to assist in child care in case of emergency.
Despite the total requirement of 11 staffers, only three women have been hired to look after infants. Of them, only two were present when this reporter visited the place, which was experiencing a power breakdown and had no alternative electricity arrangements.
Two toddlers were in the play area, while the rest had been put to sleep by the aya.
The manager says the procedure for registering the kids is quite simple. They have to fill in the forms, attach the child’s birth certificate, a copy of their NIC and the vaccination record of the baby, she adds.
Maria, a mother, informs this reporter that she has chosen the day care centre simply because there is no other day care in the neighbourhood. I used to leave my child at my grandmother’s house, but she is very old and her maid has left. So, now I have to rely on the day care centre, she says.
Saher, a banker, says she cannot leave her job because of the perks and benefits that it offers. My husband has no objection to my working and since we have nowhere else to leave our daughter we opted for this centre. She maintains that though the day care centre is not so good, she has no option.
Source: Dawn
Date:4/9/2008
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