PUTRAJAYA, Feb 17 — The Women, Family and Community Development Ministry sees the need to build more child care centres to meet the growing number of pre-school children in the country.

Its minister, Datuk Seri Rohani Abdul Karim said the 3,172 registered centres in the country were found to be insufficient to meet the demand to place children.

She was met by reporters after conducting surprise visits to three child care centres here to check on their compliance with the Child Care Centre Act 1984.

Last year, the Welfare Department issued 575 reminders to unregistered child care centres, while five nurseries were closed and three were taken to court over various offences under the Act.

According to her, the clean-up by the department was not just aimed at punishing errant centres but more towards looking at the constraints and problems faced by operators in registering with the ministry.

Meanwhile, Rohani said she was targeting to set up 800 new child care centres as the ministry's key performance indicator. — Bernama