Fatimah: Childcare centres, kindergartens in Sibu only allowed to operate with urgent application from frontliners

Fatimah (third left) showing the children at Tadika Kurnia on proper handwashing steps during her visit, accompanied by Rosey (second left) and others.

KUCHING (Feb 2): Childcare centres and kindergartens in Sibu can only operate if there is an urgent application from frontliners, said Minister of Welfare, Community Wellbeing, Women, Family and Childhood Development Dato Sri Fatimah Abdullah.

She explained that a circular on the matter has been issued to all registered childcare centres and kindergartens operating in Sibu, which is currently undergoing the Movement Control Order (MCO) until Feb 14.

She said that this means 325 early childhood education institutions (both taska and tadika) registered in Sibu are not allowed to operate during the period.

She revealed that so far there was one application from a childcare centre supervisor in Sibu requesting for their centre to be opened due to demand from frontline staff.

“However, after checking, we found that the reason given by the supervisor of the centre was not true, so we did not allow them to operate.

“As I mentioned earlier, we will only allow childcare centres and kindergartens to operate if there is really an urgent request from frontline staff such as nurses, doctors and such,” she told a press conference after visiting Tadika Kurnia Kuching which she inspected for standard operating procedure (SOP) compliance.

On the visit, Fatimah said that it aims to monitor the compliance of SOP to ensure the safety of children and educators.

She said registered childcare centres and kindergartens are allowed to operate in Conditional Movement Control Order (CMCO) areas including Kuching, provided that the supervisors are able to ensure strict compliance with the SOP throughout the teaching and learning process.

“This is not the first visit; we have visited many centres and found SOP compliance to be very high. For me, registered childcare centres and kindergartens are the safest place for children rather than to be left at home without a guardian or sent to an unregistered centre.

“In fact, we find that the supervisors of these institutions have modified many teaching and learning approaches and activities to ensure that SOP, especially physical distancing, are always complied with,” she said.

She added that if there are children or teachers as well as staff at childcare centres or kindergartens who are confirmed positive for Covid-19, the centres concerned will be ordered to close immediately.

As of Dec 31, 2020, there are 3,063 registered early childhood education institutions in Sarawak involving a total of 81,244 children, 6,500 educators or caregivers and 4,102 assistants.

Also present was Assistant Minister of Welfare, Community Wellbeing, Women, Family and Childhood Development Datuk Rosey Yunus.

 

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