Some 14,000 day care centers nationwide started a two-day strike on Thursday in protest against the government’s new limit on their full-day services from next month, which they fear will lead to operating difficulties.

The government recently announced a new child care policy for toddlers aged 48 months and younger, which aims to balance demand and supply.

Under the new rule, which goes into effect from next month, toddlers aged 2 and younger with a stay-at-home parent can only use the day care centers for up to six hours. Children of working parents will continue to be eligible to use the facilities for up to 12 hours.

The all-day classes will operate from 7:30 a.m. to 7 p.m., while the “tailored” classes will open from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. An additional 15 hours of care will be available per month for single-income parents in case of emergencies, according to the new regulation. The government has also exempted children of parents seeking jobs and those with disabled or sick parents.

The new system announced by the Health and Welfare Ministry was immediately met with opposition.

The opponents, mainly private day care centers, claimed that the new rule will lead to downsized state subsidies due to the reduced quota for full-day services, which they said will inevitably lead to poorer working conditions for staff. The state subsidies given to tailored classes are 80 percent of those for full-day classes.

The measure was also criticized by single-income families who will be forced out of the full-day services and some double-income households who worry about the increased documentation that they need to provide to prove their income sources.

The government counters that the overall budget to subsidize child care has been raised by 6 percent this year, so the eventual revenue of the child care centers will not be affected. Welfare Minister Chung Chin-youb said the government would sternly deal with an illegal strike by the day care centers.

According to the Korea Institute for Child Care and Education that surveyed 2,593 households with babies and toddlers last year, the average number of hours their children spent at child care centers was 7.6 hours. In comparison, the average working hours of working parents was 9.4 hours, meaning many double-income households had to turn to alternatives such as hiring nannies and relying on grandparents to take care of their children until they returned home from work.

While classes at day care centers are categorized by age, after certain hours in the afternoon, all children are usually gathered in a single classroom until centers close at 7:30 p.m.

The opposing child care centers said that the increased number of children going home earlier upon the implementation of the new policy would force many of the facilities to take care of the remaining children -- regardless of their age -- together to save costs and labor, which in turn could result in downgrading of the quality of child care services.

Some also pointed to the fundamental limit of the current system through which subsidies for child care are provided to facilities, which has led to an excessive increase in the number of child care centers nationwide.

(khnews@heraldcorp.com)