Following Sunday’s protests by parents across the country demanding more supervision of daycare centers by the government, Prime  Minister Binyamin Netanyahu made an announcement on his live Facebook feed stating that the operations and oversight of all daycares in Israel will now be handled by the Education Ministry.

Taking the responsibility of the daycares out of the hands of the Ministry of Labor and Social Services, will be a financially hefty task and carry a large price tag with it, one which the government, with its considerable current deficit is not prepared to handle, leaving questions of how exactly Netanyahu will make good on his promise.

The protest by the parents was in reaction to the numerous instances of violence against infants that have taken place in public daycares by the caregivers. Two of the major problems espoused by the parents are the lack of oversight in most daycares and the lack of proper training being given to the caregivers. Whereas some daycare providers offer increased oversight and training, any do not offer any. Workers in the department for early childhood education (ECE) said that: “It is enough for a person to have a pulse and they can get a job as a daycare teacher working with infants.”

The Prime Minister the current Education Minister Rafi Peretz agreed on Monday that the Daycare Department would be transferred to the Education Ministry following the elections in September.

Netanyahu said during his speech: “Beyond cameras, training toddlers and basic supervision – I have now agreed with Minister of Education Rafi Peretz that we will transfer the operation of the day care centers to the Education Ministry. This is a necessary step. We talked about it yesterday in the government and we made a decision today.”

Peretz added: “Beginning with the next government, the field of ECE will be given over to the Education Ministry. I’ve instructed the director of the Ministry to receive the daycares. The protection and security of our children need to be unified under one body from the time that they are born, through daycare, and into elementary, intermediate and high school. We need to make sure that our children our protected in every sense of the word. The Education Ministry is the best option for this responsibility both from a professional and a qualitative standpoint.”

Until now, the daycare system has been run by the Ministry of Labor and Social Services who initiated the program so that mothers could go out and rejoin the workforce after having a child. However, following the almost universal implementation of the program, the oversight of the daycare system has become more of an educational question and less of an employment one. Minister of Labor and Social Services Haim Katz asked to retain the authority over the subsidization and construction of the daycares under the new system, a request that seems likely to be accepted.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)