The purpose of this study is to identify the directors’ experiences about the transition of their Home Child-care Centers to the Public Type Child-care Centers by first and second elections. The ultimate aim of this study is to identify practical st...
The purpose of this study is to identify the directors’ experiences about the transition of their Home Child-care Centers to the Public Type Child-care Centers by first and second elections. The ultimate aim of this study is to identify practical strategies for supporting effective management of the transferred Public Type Child-care Centers.
The research questions established in this study are as follows:
Firstly, what are the directors’ experiences before their centers to be transferred from Home Child-care Centers to the Public Type Child-care Centers?
Secondly, what are the directors’ experiences after the transition?
Thirdly, what supports do the directors expect in order for their transferred centers to settle as Public Type Child-care Centers?
The research participants of this study were 8 directors of the Public Type Child-care Centers that were transferred from the Home Child-care Centers in Changwon. In order to study the research topics, interview questions were listed in advance and pre-examined by the professionals of the Early Childhood Education. After conducting preliminary study with one director in 10th December 2012, the questionnaire was amended by adding and deleting items and finally completed. The interview was semi-structured interview following the list of questions but the sequences, speeds, the widths and depths of the questions were flexible depending on each circumstance. Interview was carried out from 18th December 2012 to 25th January 2013. The duration of the interview lasted from 1 hour to 1 hour and 30 minutes. The interview was recorded with the participants’ permissions. The recorded data were transcribed and analysed using qualitative methods such as Coding, Applying and Generating themes.
The findings are as follows:
Firstly, the directors of the transferred Public Type Child-care Centers from the Home Child-care centers experienced great amount of pressures just before the period of transition. The pressures included "Financial difficulties", "Instabilities of the system", "Feeling unclear about what to improve after Test-Management", "Pressures from educational inspection" and "One-Strike Out system". In spite of the difficulties, they had decided to transfer their Home Child-care Centers into the Public Type Child-care Centers. By doing so, they expected they could employ more staff with higher qualities. Also they replied that the adoption of Public Type brand would enable them to survive through hard competition.
Secondly, in the question of the experiences after the transitions, the directors answered that their Child-care Centers had improved in qualities such as a "Achieving reputation as an excellent child-care provision with high quality", "Employing staff with higher qualifications", "Increased opportunities of improving the professionalism", and "Cooperation in the field experiences". However, they were still struggling with "Difficulties with finances", "Pressures from educational inspections", "Lack of supply teachers" and "Insufficient advertisement for the Public Type Child-care Centers".
Thirdly, the directors raised several issues for the Home Child-care Centers to be settled into stable Public Type Child-care Centers. Those issues were "Increase of the finances for the management of the centers", "Provision of supply teachers" and "Changed perspectives of the directors and teachers".
Based on the results described above, this study concluded that financial and administrative supports are urgently needed for the Home Child-care centers to be transferred into the Public Type Child-care Centers. By doing so, it will be possible for the transferred Public Type Child-care Centers to firmly establish the Public Type Child-care Infra having the same quality level of government funded Child-care centers that are trusted by parents.