KUALA LUMPUR, May 6 — Parents are reluctant to send their children to daycare centres and are adopting a wait-and-see approach during the conditional movement control order (CMCO) period.
Channel NewsAsia (CNA) today reported that parents feel it is still too risky to send their children to daycare centres and would rather rely on live-in helpers and family members instead.
“With the easing (of the restrictions), I have brought my parents to my house here to be with my daughter. Honestly, it is not worth the risk of sending her to daycare. Don’t get me wrong, our daycare is very clean and careful, but you can’t be too sure,” said legal consultant Danial Ashfari, 36, who has a two-year-old daughter.
Nurse R. Vichitra, 29, and her husband, a doctor, are also reluctant to send their two children aged one and four to the daycare.
“No matter how many precautions we take, even if one person lets it slip, it can harm not only our children, but other children too,” she told CNA.
Theresa Chetty, 40, said that while she and her husband are allowed to work from home, they will abstain from sending their son to the kindergarten.
“As a parent, I’m lucky that my company said we could work from home. My husband is working at home too, and we can juggle.
“But the moment they ask us to go back to the office, then I’ll need to start looking for someone to help take care of my son... It really depends on the employer,” she said.
On Monday, Malaysia gave the green light for most businesses to reopen, including daycare centres.
CNA reported that child daycare centres are adopting a cautious approach; practicing social distancing and other standard operating procedures as instructed by the authorities.
A childcare centre operator in Petaling Jaya, who only wanted to be known as Mary Anne said her centre began operations on Monday after sanitising its premises over the weekend, following the announcement by Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.
However, the attendance rate has been low over the past two days, with only two students turning up on Monday and five on Tuesday, out of 30 enrolled children. Many parents have indicated that they would not be sending their children in until the end of the month at the very least.
She also said that teachers will employ teaching methods and activities that avoid contact between children.
Other centres like Little Footprints in Kuala Lumpur are still mulling whether to open for business, noting that it would be difficult to enforce social distancing among young children.
“When you talk about the standard operating procedures that we have to follow like sanitisation, it is not really a concern because we are very stringent in keeping our premises clean.
“The children will all be sent by their parents, so that is not a worry either. It is my teachers I am worried about because they travel by public transportation,” said Yen.
According to the guidelines issued, employees at the childcare have to test negative for Covid-19 prior to reopening.
