Barcelona targets will secure wider options for Czech parents. Gender Studies organization doesn´t agree with questioning the targets of the Barcelona process.

The Czech Republic was criticised in the context of discussing the targets of the Barcelona process by the European Parliament for proposing measures that force women to interrupt their careers in order to care for their children. We agree with this argument.

In March 2002 in Barcelona, the European Commission called on the member states to “remove the barriers to the full participation of women in employment and to strive to provide childcare services for at least 90% of children between the ages of three and school age, and for at least 33% of children younger than three by 2010. These steps were to take into account the existing structure of childcare service provision and the demand for such services in each country.

The Barcelona targets are an integral part of the European development and employment strategy. Minister Petr Nečas has attacked a part of the strategy aimed at increasing the prosperity of the E.U., specifically the recommendation of the European Commission that asked the member states to “remove the barriers to women’s full participation in the labour market and to respond to the demand for childcare facilities.” This recommendation seeks to raise employment levels and to contribute to economic growth. Its aim is not to force parents to go back to work despite their will, but to give those who are interested in returning to their jobs, the option to leave their child in the care of a non-parent when at work.

Many parents must return to the labour market sooner than in three years for economic reasons. The majority of Czech households depends on two incomes to make ends meet.

The Barcelona document does not specify what childcare institutions or facilities must be offered by the member states, nor does it prescribe collective or group childcare. The targets of the Barcelona process demand that 33% of children under three years of age have access to some kind of childcare.

NURSERY?

Currently, approximately 1% of children in the Czech Republic are placed in nurseries. This statistic represents the full capacity of these institutions. Nurseries may be under-utilized because parents, who place their child in nursery care more than five times per month, lose their state parenting benefit (amounting to 7,600 CZK per month). Additionally, the nursery fees are several times higher than kindergarten fees. In contrast to kindergarten funding, the funds for nurseries come from the municipal budgets. These costs are too high for the majority of Czech cities and towns, leading to a continuous decrease in the number of nurseries in the Czech Republic in spite of parent demand.

The current supply of childcare services or facilities is inadequate and insufficient, effectively preventing women (parents) from returning back to the labour market any sooner than after three years after the birth of their child. Therefore, there is no "freedom for families," as the Czech government claims. The option to go back to work before the child reaches three years of age really exists only for wealthy families who can afford private childcare, such as a nanny. Ironically, return to work is most important to those families who cannot live on one income and the parenting benefit only, and for single parent families.

Contemporary nurseries in no way resemble the collective and uniform style of the 1970s nursery institutions. Nurseries nowadays respond to new trends and the needs of parents as well as children, and cannot be compared to the "well-developed nursery system of the totalitarian times." Similarly, we cannot denounce all collective types of pre-school childcare and not take into account its successful points. In Sweden for instance, institutionalized childcare incorporated into the educational system is known for its high quality.

NURSERY IN THE VIEW OF PSYCHOLOGISTS

“Opinions of child psychology or psychiatry experts are frequently to argue against institutional childcare for children under three years of age. However, more often than not, such arguments tend to be personal opinions rather than scientific data. In the Czech Republic, no research has shown that children in nursery care exhibit signs of unhealthy development, frustration linked to parental distance or any other developmental disorders, as some psychologists claim. On the contrary, in countries where childcare is available from the age of one and half or two years on, psychological research disproves such fears. In Norway, Sweden, or Denmark, psychologists emphasize that children at this age are fully able to build relationships with their peers when presented the opportunity. Moreover, the psychologists suggest that the longer children are sheltered from other children, the greater the potential of over-depending on their parents, leading to traumatic experiences of parental distance at a later age. Experience from Scandinavia shows that peer contact at early age has a positive effect on children's self-confidence, independence, as well as on their social skills and competencies in general, including the children’s ability to build new relationships, to be assertive and empathetic.

Lukáš Sedláček, M. A., psychologist 

„As far as I know, there is no good psychological research examining the state of childcare services for children under the age of three in the Czech Republic. The available data, typically collected via individual counseling experience, tends to be out of date. Since it does not reflect the radical shifts in teaching methods after 1989 (the fall of Communism) and because it is not gathered with the help of any representative studies, it has little statistical value.“

Kateřina Machovcová, M. A. ,psychologist

QUALITY ASSURANCE

The "Commission's Report to the Council, European Parliament, the European Economic and Social Committee and to the Regional Committees: Implementing the Targets of the Barcelona Process in Respect to the Provision of Pre-schools," states:

"The quality of the childcare facility is the first factor in parental decision-making. It determines whether a parent entrusts her/his child to its care. This measure of quality includes a variety of factors such as the types of services offered, the standards of care, staff numbers or staff education levels. Ensuring minimal standards of care for all is an equal opportunities matter for children as well as for parents. The Commission has emphasized the need to support high standards of pre-school care - as a social service for public good - by developing voluntary quality frameworks.”

But in contrast to other quality standards, state regulation and control is essential here even though it is entrusted to other institutions and bodies more and more. We would like to bring attention to the trend of diversification in the types of care, especially in the form of private nurseries or home care, all of which increase the range of options for parents. On the other hand, this growing variety makes care quality assurance procedures more difficult.

Improving the quality of care requires strict standards that are secured via inspection, minimum education standards for all the workers employed in the field, improving their working conditions and by providing opportunities for lifelong learning. Valuing the (child-)care professions is no less important, particularly in the area of remuneration."

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:52008DC0638:CS:HTML

MUTUAL HELP AMONG PARENTS

In its new package of pro-family policies, the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs has been preparing a measure to broaden the scope of available childcare services through the institutionalization of mutual help among parents This new institute enables parents to provide childcare to children of other parents. No special education will be necessary. The providers themselves must be parents of children younger than seven years of age, must have a clean criminal record, and to demonstrate moral and personal qualities necessary to provide adequate care to the children entrusted to them. The state will check or regulate these providers only very little, making childcare quality assurance procedures all the more harder. The only QA measure in the case of the institute is represented by a limit on the maximum number of children (4) in the care of one registered provider. This limit is different than the limit applicable for nurseries where a qualified nanny can care for 6-8 children. On the other hand, nannies in nurseries are responsible merely for care while other specialized staff does the cooking and cleaning.

CZECH REALITY

In 2005/06 school year 75% of three-year olds, 90% of four-year olds, a 96% of all five-year olds attended kindergartens. These numbers suggest that kindergartens are in great demand and that the number of kindergarten places comes close to the Barcelona target recommendations. The fact that 25% of all two-year old children are placed kindergarten can be interpreted as a sign of great parental trust in Czech institutions providing collective childcare.

There is no representative data about when women and men in the Czech Republic would like to go back to work after parental leave, whether and how much they are interested in working for pay during the leave, and whether they would be interested in childcare services for children younger than three years of age. It is clear that parents are interested in placing their children in childcare facilities from two years of age on because a quarter of all two-year olds attended kindergartens in 2005/06. The “Employment and care for small children in the view of parents and employers” study supervised by Věra Kuchařová, VÚPSV Praha 2006, carried out for Gender Studies, o.p.s., showed that parents face a number of issues upon returning back to work or when striving to achieve a balance between work and family lives: "Especially mothers disapprove of the lack of part-time/flex work opportunities (20%), indirectly criticizing the unfriendly human resource policies of employers toward mothers of young children. Other reported problems were not (directly) aimed at employers. “Inadequate nursery, kindergarten, and similar services” and “lack of transportation options in respect to getting to work" were cited as the top two problems (both issues were noted by 16% respondents).

This press release is supported by:

Czech Women's Lobby, Chair: Alexandra Jachanová Doleželová, M.A.

Equal Opportunities Association, Chair: Michaela Marksová-Tominová, M.A.

Contacts:

Linda Sokačová, M.A., ředitelka Gender Studies, o.p.s., , linda.sokacova@genderstudies.cz

Equal Opportunities Association, Chair: Michaela Marksová-Tominová, M.A., markstomin@seznam.cz

Gender Studies, o.p.s. is a non-profit non-governmental organization serving as a centre of information, consulting, and education in the field of relationships among women and men and their positions in the society. The organization's mission is to collect, process, and distribute information about gender issues. Via a variety of projects, Gender Studies actively affects changes toward equal opportunities in the areas of the labour market, women’s political participation, information technologies and others. Gender Studies also operates an extensive library of publications and documents on feminism, gender studies, women's and men's rights, etc.