Abstract
Forms and Systems of Quality Child Care Services in Thailand:An Indepth Case Study Today most Thai families rely on child-care providers to help raise their children, often beginning at a critical stage of their brain development, particularly children under 6 year of age. But most of the settings where Thai children receive care fall short of the quality standards. The primary focus of this qualitative study is to investigate child care forms, systems and factors related to quality child care services in Thailand. The second objective is to analyses the criteria and standards of quality child-care in both private and government setting, and compare with foreign standards in order to set (minimum) standards of care under Thai context. Data was collected from administrators/owners and childcare providers/caregivers of the childcare settings, including children aged 0-6 years and their parents of 20 selected sample child-care centers/schools operated by government and private own in Bangkok and other provinces throughout Thailand. Both Structured and unstructured questionnaires for interviews, including observation and videotaping techniques were used to collect data. The results showed that the forms of child-care services in Thailand were varied depending on the purpose of services (affiliated with school or not) the age group of children to be care (infants, toddlers or preschools) and t the need of children (normal or special disadvantaged children). About the system of good quality child care services, it was found that mostly composed of a better and more efficient managements in terms of accountability of financial system, low staff turnover and higher job responsibility and satisfaction; staff(s) with more formal education and specialized early childhood training in addition, a more developmentally appropriate environment with age-appropriate and child-centered activities to promote learning and foster all aspects of their development; higher standard of health, nutrition and safety provisions; including better relations with parents/and communities were evident. For the quality improvement of all government units in Thailand, the focus was actually on standards and indicators of inputs and process of child-care services/centers more than outcome on child development. A good quality child-care center in Thai context should include some standards from foreign countries such as a clear philosophy and goals between child care staffs and parents to promote their complementary roles and to parents participation; the interactions between children and staff, the interactions between staff themselves; and also the respect of protecting child abuse. Therefore it will be worthwhile to specify that minimum acceptable standards regarding such factors in order to guarantee good quality child-care services for young children.
