KUCHING: To ensure the safety of the children, childcare centres (Taska) and kindergartens (Tadika) are required to comply with the new standard operating procedure (SOP) guidelines and must fill in the Consolidate Form to ease the process of registration in setting up these institutions.
Minister of Welfare, Community Wellbeing, Women, Family and Childhood Development Datuk Seri Fatimah Abdullah said on June 29, the ministry had a meeting with the Land and Survey Department together with other agencies and had come out with several resolutions for the process of registration application.
Private taska and tadika operators have often complained that it usually takes a long time for the permit to get approved, Fatimah said. Therefore, the Land and Survey Department has decided that they will process the application for the use of the premises site in 35 days instead of 45 days before this, she added.
“The approval to operate will be adjusted to five years. Before this some approvals were done in two to three years period. And for private tadika that had registered with the Education Department, they must renew their permit every year,” she told a press conference at her office, Baitul Makmur Building, yesterday.
There is no need for taska and tadika operators to hire a consultant or runner in managing the registration applications unless there is a major renovation of the premises involved, Fatiimah said.
“Furthermore, no temporary permit will be issued from now onwards. This is because before these when a temporary permit was issued, the respective operators did not do necessarily follow the process required for registration,” she pointed out.
Fatimah said when applying for the taska and tadika permit, it needs to go through several processes with the technical agencies such as Bomba, Health Department, Local Authorities, and many forms needed to be filled.
“As such, a consolidated form has been made available to ease the process of registration. We do not have the intention to make life difficult for the operators. But through this process of registration, we want to make sure that safety of the children sent to these taska and tadika are guaranteed,” she said.
The minister said on registration applications that have not been approved, reasons will also be explained to the operators on why their applications are not approved so that the operators can relook into what need to be rectified.
“Therefore, we hope with this new SOP, it will ease the process of registration to make sure the children are in safe hands,” she stressed.
She added that unregistered taska and tadika is against the Act 308 of the Childcare Centre Act 1984.
On the consolidated form, Fatimah said it could be obtained at the respective district Education Department and Welfare Department soon.
Also present at the press conference were ministry’s permanent secretary Dr Saadiah Abdul Samat and the ministry’s Early Childhood Development division head Salina Bujang.
