Entrepreneurship in Child Care Services

Entrepreneurship in Childcare Services 4 (2+2)

Lesson 5 : Child Development Center: Need and Importance

Importance of assessment of child Development centers

Parents who are more highly educated tend to enroll their children in early childhood schools and centers at a higher rate than parents with less education. Nursery schools are considered of higher quality “more educational” than day child-care centers and during the 1960s and 1970s many working parents pieced together half-day nursery school programs, family day care, and baby-sitting to get enough hours to enable parents to manage their work schedule and their child’s early childhood schedule. As more and more mothers joined the work force, the demand for full-time high-quality child care also increased.

Organized child care, according to governmental statisticians, is defined as enrollment in a child-care center or participation in nursery school and is differentiated from in-the-home care by relatives or family day care. Significantly, mothers with the most education and who work in managerial-professional jobs are most likely to enroll their children under five in organized child-care facilities. However the service workers and laborers are not using organized child care because the hours of operation of centers typically are daytime hours, which may not coordinate with the worker’s schedule.

It is important to assess the needs of the community before ensuring that the planned programme is properly scaled to meet both the size and nature and of the community need. Need assessment is important and is to be done during preliminary planning period. Need assessment should be completed before any financial or programme planning begins.