Egypt: Government sponsors home daycare

Egypt’s Ministry of Social Solidarity will launch a project to expand the establishment of nurseries, including a new system for home nurseries, later next year.

The government intends to spend 250 million pounds on the program in its first phase which will start in six provinces and last for three years, Sahar Mashhour, the adviser to the Minister of Solidarity for Social Welfare, told Masrawy.

The project comes as part of the government’s request to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a $12 billion loan to support the economic reform programme.

According to Masrawy, the “National Early Childhood Development Program” will need an executive director and an integrated team to start work, Sahar said.

Nurseries in Egypt

There is currently a large gap between the number of nurseries and the number of children in need in Egypt. Moreover, in its economic reform program which it presented to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Egypt pledged a $ 12 billion loan to spend 250 million pounds on public nurseries by the end of June 2017 to enhance women’s ability to work.

While Egypt did not meet this first date, it increased the investment amount to 500 million pounds to be implemented before the end of June 2018, according to the initial audit documents conducted by the mission of the IMF.

Project Objective

According to the plan, the ministry aims to improve 500 existing kindergartens which are run by NGOs. The project also aims to expand the establishment of new nurseries through the legitimization of the status of a thousand unlicensed nurseries.

We aim to reconcile the situation of 1,000 out of 5,000 existing unlicensed kindergartens by overcoming the obstacles of obtaining permits and solving their problems through a coordinating ministerial committee to be set up with the launch of the program,

said the adviser of the Minister of Social Solidarity.

The project introduces a new kind of nurseries under the name of “Home nurseries” while the government’s he programme aims at establishing 500 home nurseries.

Home nurseries are established in the same way as ordinary nurseries, but are implemented and managed in the homes led by the civil associations that will participate in the implementation of the project, according to the program that Masrawy obtained.

According to Sahar Mashhour, nurseries will be established with specific requirements through NGOs that will be involved in the implementation of the project and it would be preferable to establish such a nursery in a fully female home.

She added: “In any case, there will be strict control over this type of nursery because it is inside the houses and we must first secure the house where our children enter.”

According to Mashhour, this type of nursery opens up many opportunities for women both inside the home and through the appointment of teachers.

She said that the requirements for home nurseries will be simpler and easier than the permits for the establishment of special nursery that requires higher conditions and standards in terms of space and location.

But the ministry will apply to this new type of nurseries the same quality standards which are applied to the ordinary nurseries, Sahar said.

The new programme works on establishing one thousand new private nurseries through a loan that extends for the same period of the program provided to individuals from Nasser Bank.

Sahar said that the programme allows individuals to receive interest-free loans from Nasser Bank and with administrative expenses of 5% of the loan, similar to the initiative of the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) for small-scale projects . The maximum loan granted by the program is estimated at between 200,000 and 300,000 pounds from Nasser Bank.

The project also includes the development of 125 child and family development centres in the new urban communities. Sahar explained that family development centres are centres with nurseries and activities for children, family counselling and services for the whole family.

The new program is also working on the establishment of approved quality standards for different nurseries, along with an executive regulation which organizes the work of nurseries and the organization of their permits.

The program identifies a unified educational curriculum for all nurseries in different governorates of the Republic.

It includes the professional practices of teachers and learning outcomes of children. The programme will train 270 employees in the ministry on providing technical support to the nurseries in terms of applying the quality standards and the unified educational curriculum.

Program budget

Sahar estimates the initial budget of the program to be around 250 million Egyptian pounds in its first phase.

She explained that about 175 million pounds are allocated as non-refundable grants to NGOs that are chosen by the ministry to implement development programs with nurseries.

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She said that the project will be realized by partner NGOs which have experience in development, because “the ministry cannot provide this development programme, primarily for civil society, on its own.” Sahar added that each association will provide a financial and technical programme to the ministry in the areas of development that the ministry will announce its need in.

“We will allocate about 50 million pounds to Nasser Bank to channel them as loans for those who want to establish a new home nursery,” she added.

These funds are all financed from the public treasury, according to Sahar.

The programme’s geographical distribution

The Ministry of Solidarity plans to start the programme in six governorates: Cairo, Giza, Gharbia, Red Sea, Aswan, and Alexandria. According to the project, these governorates represent all geographical sectors in Egypt, and have a heavy concentration of nurseries, which represent 42% of the total nurseries in 27 governorates.

The number of nurseries in Egypt is more than 14.2 thousand licensed nurseries, and the largest proportion of nurseries is in Giza governorate with 2172 nurseries followed by Cairo with 1194.

In Gharbia governorate, there are 1145 nurseries and Alexandria contains 496 nurseries, while the number in Aswan governorate is 741 nurseries and 236 nurseries are in Red Sea governorate.

The programme shows that there is a large gap between the number of children enrolled in nurseries and the total number of children in the one to four years age group reaching 91%.

According to Sahar, the number of children aged 1 to 4 years enrolled in kindergartens in Egypt is about 847.4 thousand children out of a total of 10.4 million children at this age category.

NGOs as a key partner

The Early Childhood Development program relies on NGOs as a key partner in implementing part of the project, especially the development segment.

“We will first choose the NGOs that will implement the project with us,” Sahar said. “It will often be among large NGOs with long experience in development.”

Sahar explained that part of the project which is assigned to associations may cause some risks, “The ministry will follow up the work of these associations periodically, in addition to launching hotlines services that allow any citizen to complain about the association or the nursery in case of a violation,” Sahar said.

In case the association violates the conditions of attribution, the ministry will withdraw the project and give it to another association, according to the minister’s adviser.

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