KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 26 — The Pakatan Harapan government aims to see an increase in registered childcare centres by the end of next year, following Putrajaya’s initiative to offer a 20 per cent discount on electricity bills for centres registered under the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry.
The ministry’s Deputy Minister Hannah Yeoh said currently 4,744 out of 40,000 estimated childcare centres are registered with the Social Welfare Department (JKM).
The initiative, however, is offered to centres that are under the commercial tariff category (Tariff B) under Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB).
“Based on the population of children below four years old, we have estimated that there are about 40,000 childcare centres, but only a few are registered.
“With this initiative, we hope it will encourage more centres to register with JKM. This initiative was introduced because we know that the operational cost to run the centres is high,” said Yeoh during a press conference here today.
She said the discount is currently offered to centres in peninsula Malaysia, while Putrajaya continues to hold discussions with Sarawak Energy Berhad (SEB) and Sabah Electricity Sdn Bhd (SESB) to have the initiative introduced in the Borneo states as well.
Yeoh said the government is committed to restructuring early childcare centres in order to protect babies and toddlers from abuse.
“All these years, we only have 11.9 per cent centres registered under JKM. Last year, it was only 10 per cent.
“Now we want to ensure that we protect those below four years old... this is not merely babysitting,” she said.
Yeoh said the timeline given for the initiative is from November 2019 to December 31, 2020 which hopefully will attract more centres to register within the given time frame.
Also present at the press conference was Energy, Science, Technology, Environment and Climate Change Minister Yeo Bee Yin.
