On December 22, 2023, the Xihongmen Campus and Shangdi Campus of Lerong Children's Home announced the suspension of classes due to business difficulties, affecting more than 1,000 parents who have not completed the early education course and dozens of parents of the nursery class, and the above-mentioned campus operating institutions (Xihongmen Campus is operated by Beijing Dingge Childcare***Shangdi Campus, which is operated by Beijing Lede Childcare Service***, are all 55 in the city announced by the Beijing Municipal Health Commission, "Beijing Childcare Service Demonstration Unit ( 2023-2025) list. The incident aroused strong repercussions among the affected families and parents, and aroused widespread social concern, and also exposed the serious problems of the District Health Commission's "inadequate supervision of prepaid funds for childcare institutions" and "lax control of the audit of demonstration units".
The management of prepaid consumption funds in childcare institutions
In September 2023, the Beijing Municipal Health Commission, the Beijing Municipal Market Supervision Bureau and other five departments jointly issued the "Measures for the Management of Prepaid Consumption Funds of Childcare Institutions in Beijing", which stipulates that "childcare institutions shall directly deposit all prepaid funds into their own special depository accounts", "childcare institutions that have been rated as exemplary in the city shall use 50% of the prepaid funds as depository funds", and the depository ratio of other institutions is 70%, and stipulates that "the district health administrative department shall be responsible for the filing and supervision of prepaid cards of childcare institutions within its jurisdiction".
In this incident, Beijing Dingge Childcare, the business unit of Xihongmen Campus of Lerong Home, did not deposit the advance payment of childcare into the depository account as required, and the relevant departments also failed to perform their supervisory duties and did not find any abnormalities in the advance collection of funds.
Promotional poster of Joy Rong Children's Home.
The evaluation system of childcare service demonstration units
Lerong Xihongmen Campus was listed as a demonstration unit by the Beijing Municipal Health Commission one month before the suspension of classes (November 2023), but the actual situation is that there have been problems such as poor continuous operation, arrears of social security for employees (social security payment was delayed from May to December 2022, and no supplementary payment has been made up so far), and reasonable refunds for parents of graduated classes are difficult. Parents questioned the reasonableness of the Daxing District Health Commission's evaluation criteria and evaluation process for the demonstration units.
The latest development of the incident, the National Health Commission responded
According to the recordings provided by a number of parents, the Daxing District Health Commission admitted that there was regulatory negligence in the return visit, and proposed to wait for the reorganization of the campus operator, recommend that parents register with the school for refunds, and the Daxing District Health Commission coordinates the placement of children into other childcare institutions and the fees need to be paid by parents again.
Regarding the above handling methods, parents reasonably questioned whether the operator of the Xihongmen Campus has the ability to reorganize, whether the Daxing District Health Commission actively coordinated the dialogue with the Lerong Headquarters Campus and negotiated the possibility of taking over, and how to ensure the performance of the Xihongmen Campus operator and refunded the fee, and the return visitors of the Daxing District Health Commission were unable to reply for the time being.
The population issue has always been an overall, long-term, and strategic issue facing our country. The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposed: "Optimize the population development strategy, establish a fertility support policy system, and reduce the cost ...... childbirth, parenting, and education.""As an important part of childcare security, the regulatory authorities should strengthen the supervision of childcare institutions, establish enforceable policy mechanisms, and ensure the safe management of special funds;Review the evaluation criteria of the demonstration unit to improve transparency and ensure that it is in line with the actual situation to reduce the occurrence of similar incidents. After the occurrence of such incidents, the relevant departments need to understand the actual difficulties of the families of young children in a timely manner, solve the legitimate demands of the families of young children, protect the rights and interests of young children's childcare, and promote the healthy development of the childcare industry, so as to further promote the masses to steadily implement the country's great plan.