With reopening in limbo, daycares fear permanent shutdown
The government passed a bill last year to streamline the thriving sector that now faces survival threats
The light ailing day-care centres saw at the end of the tunnel seems to be getting dim with guardians now shying away from sending their children to them.
Take, for example, the case of Twinkle Tots – a day-care centre in Dhaka's Uttara that had been looking after more than 20 kids since 2017, thus allowing mothers to go to work without childcare tensions. The babysitting used to cost Tk7,000-Tk10,000 a month per child, while the centre's monthly turnover was around Tk18 lakh.
Twinkle Tots had been doing well until the Covid outbreak shuttered the business in 2020, forcing the childcare to terminate its seven-strong staff eventually. After around two years of closure and subsequent losses, school reopening and remarkable infection fall by the end of last year dusted off the childcare's reopening plan. It renovated the rooms at the rented house, and prepared to welcome the kids back.
But a recent spiralling of Covid cases has upended everything. Twinkle Tots Supervisor Amina Khatun says the centre might not be able to reopen anytime ever if the closure is prolonged.
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There are around 1,000 commercial childcares in Dhaka, and most of them say staying afloat will be impossible if the country goes through another virus surge.
The commercial day-care centres have said they did not have any access to the government stimulus packages.
"We had a reopening plan, but it seems the pandemic will prevent that again. My dreams of helping raise the children and being a successful entrepreneur have already been shattered," Tanima Farhana, owner of Kids Paradise BD Day Care and Preschool in Dhanmondi, told The Business Standard.
There are several thousand commercial day-care centres across the country, with Dhaka being home to 43 public childcares. The government has another 20 of such centres across Bangladesh. Besides, there are 15 more day-care centres in Gazipur and Dhaka under the Ministry of Women and Children Affairs.
With more and more women going out to work due to rising education and middle-class aspirations, day care has become essential for many residents in divisional cities, the way it has become in the rest of the developed world.
While earlier generations of the Bangladeshi middle class had the luxury of raising children in extended families, urbanisation and the emergence of nuclear families in the last two decades have meant that women would have to do formal jobs, raise children and manage household chores at the same time.
Around 1.86 crore women work in formal sectors in Bangladesh, according to the latest government data, which suggest a growing demand for babysitting and huge potential of the thriving sector.
The government also passed a bill last year to streamline the growing sector, mandating registration for them. According to the law, there are four types of day-care centres – public, run by government agencies, philanthropists and non-profitable organisations and commercial ones.
The Women and Children Affairs Ministry is responsible for looking after the facilities.
Shabnam Mustari, day-care centre project director and also a joint secretary at the Women and Children Affairs Ministry, told TBS that the ministry had a reopening plan in January, but it would have to be shelved if the virus situation worsens. She also talked about guardians' concern over the recent rise in Covid cases.
About financial support, Shabnam Mustari said since most of the day-care centres are not registered, the authorities could not reach out to them with financial help.
