Autumn 2008 at the City of Jyväskyläs Tapiola day care centre parents will have the chance to book child care times on the internet. Discussion about a shift to hour-based billing is also ongoing.
The City of Jyväskyläs Tapiola day care centre went over a year ago to an electronic time measurement system the first day care centre in Finland to do so. Clock card stamping, which has been tested for a year now, involves both personnel and children. In the case of the personnel working times actually put in and for the children care times that have been taken up are monitored.
After the major task of arranging trials and building the necessary software the rest of the kids finally got their cards last autumn. Naturally introducing a clock card system at a day care centre has aroused a variety of feelings, including opposition. According to the day care centres director, Timo Korhonen, the system has generated a lot of positive benefits, however.
The system makes the job of planning shifts easier, it provides new kinds of statistical data, reduces the staffs time-consuming book-keeping and as a result frees up time for the essential tasks, teaching and looking after the children. A concomitant benefit is improved security, Korhonen claims.
Previously, and to some extent still, time management is handled by filling in paper time sheets. Time management consists of many moving parts, since Tapiola day care centre is open seven days a week around the clock. According to Korhonen, thanks to the electronic system monitoring shifts and staying abreast of things have been rendered considerably easier.
Next autumn parents will be offered the chance to reserve day care times on the internet. At the moment there is also discussion about moving from day-based to hour-based billing at the earliest, however, from the start of August 2008. Korhonen regards hour-based billing to be fairer from the parents point of view.
If a child is here overnight, for instance, then two days of care always have to be paid for, when the day changes. With hour-based billing parents would probably only have to pay for hours booked in advance. When actual care times are monitored by means of passage control systems, we can make sure that parents pay for what they should.
Korhonen believes that hour-based billing would also cut down so-called unnecessary care days, occasions when parents would not bring their children to day care simply because they have already paid for it. This would free up places for other children in need of day care.
Interest in the Tapiola day care centre model has also been expressed by numerous other day care centres in the Jyväskylä Region as well as in the Helsinki capital area and the cities of Oulu, Turku and Salo.
Viivi Virtanen Photo by Petteri Kivimäki