“Achievements” vs. “Public-Run Childcare Service”: Why Childcare Policy Has Elicited Popular Grievances?

  “Achievements” vs. “Public-Run Childcare Service”: Why Childcare Policy Has Elicited Popular Grievances?

United Daily News Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)

August 31, 2018

 Translation of an Excerpt

In August, the Cabinet rashly promoted the "quasi-public" childcare policy, leaving the public disorientated, and elicited a backlash from private sector preschool operators. Private sector childcare service operators even complained to the Fair Trade Commission, believing that the policy has caused a "concerted monopoly," which led to "unfair competition" for private sector preschool operators, hoping that justice would prevail. This chaos of childcare services originated from inadequate communication and being developed with wishful thinking on the part of officials. The government wanted to use the strength of the state to take care of young children, but it was met with opposition from an unappreciative public.

The first mistaken step of the "quasi-public" childcare policy started with the improper expansion of Premier Lai Ching-te’s "Tainan experience." When Lai Ching-te earlier pushed for turning private sector childcare services into public in Tainan, of the over 300 private sector preschools in the city, eventually only nine joined, mostly in the outlying rural areas. Such a failed experience should never have been a paradigm, but Lai Ching-te thought otherwise, believing he was right, and decided to expand it into a nationwide policy; he did not listen to the misgivings and objections on the part of childcare operators, and did not consider complimentary measures for hurrying to implement it. This approach is exactly the same as the story of “one fixed holiday, one flexible day-off” which was first forcibly pushed for by President Tsai and aroused a backlash, then was compelled to be revised a second time.

That the government considers childcare as an important national policy is something worthy of affirmation. However, it is a completely different matter for the government to forcibly employ state resources to intervene in the private sector childcare market, while Lai Ching-te, on the other hand, mixed the two up. Premier Lai's "quasi-public" childcare policy has committed three serious errors in thinking. One is the arrogance of power: believing that the government allocated budgets to spend money for subsidies could attract all childcare operators into the government administered system, while the result was completely different. The second is that the means and the ends did not correspond: pushing for the new system should aim at upgrading the quality of childcare so as to enhance the desire of younger generations to raise children: however, the policy that government forcibly pushed forward, on the other hand, would likely result in a decline in the quality of childcare, leading to more unease on the part of parents. Third is overestimating the government's capacity: Taiwan's preschool education is already a mature and diversified market, but the thinking of ​​the Lai Cabinet is, however, to turn "letting a hundred schools of thought contend" into a quasi-public service under "grand unification," which was entirely out of a lack of knowing his limitations.

It is not enough for a good policy to rely only on good intentions; the important point is to find effective means. It is impossible for a public policy that could not win people’s hearts to develop good results. Besides thinking of his own "achievements," Lai Ching-te should have an intelligent design for his system; merely having the name of "public-run" is not adequate!

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