Research  Abstract  No.79 
                                                 A Study of Collective Opinions Regarding some 
                                 Aspects of Childcare Center  Management in Thailand 
                             Assoc. prof. Dr. Dusadee  Yoelao 
                            Assist. Prof  laddawan Kasemnet 
                                     Assist. Prof  Prateep Jinnge 



            Executive Summary 
                     The objectives  of this study were to find  collective opinions about childcare centers services
regarding the following: 1) purposes of childcare centers and goals of child development, 2) the main organization
responsible for coordinating childcare centers, 3) roles of community, private organization, and government  in childcare
centers services, and 4) activities for quality control and evaluation of  childcare centers services. 
                    Sample consisted of  four groups of  people. The first group consisted of academics, politicians,  chief
executives of  private  and governmental organizations  providing childcare services.  The  second group consisted of
officials coordinating between central  government  and local organizations providing the services in Chiengmai,
Khonkan, Songhkla, Chonburi, and Bangkok .  The third group 
consisted of  workers  at  childcare centers from top level such as heads of schools to bottom level such as care providers. 
The last group consisted of  parents of children at the childcare centers.  The total subjects were 1,663. 
                     Findings and implementations were as follows.  There was a  collective agreement on the purposes of
the childcare centers.  They  were  to promote the correct practices of  child development ,and to provide basic social
habit training for children .   The results showed also the collective agreement  on goals of  child development for the 0-3,
and 3-6 years children.  These  were  good physical health, balance  of psychological, emotional, and social development,
and happiness.  Moreover  creative thinking  was selected as child development goal for the 3-6 years old children.  As a
result, we recommended that the government should  take  actions in  collecting ideas from experts and practitioners on
standard of practices for childcare centers in order to achieve the above purposes and goals.  At the same time childcare
centers,  related organizations, the general public, and other stakeholders should  be informed.  Their roles and functions
should also be identified. 
                    Concerning main organizations responsible for childcare centers, it was agreed that the ministries of
education and public health should be responsible for the 0-3 years old age group childcare centers such as the ministries
of interior, defense, and university affairs to establish common policies, goals, purposes and practices. 
                    As to the roles of community, private organization and government in child services, the collective opinion
was that they should form a working group to write a manual.  However no agreement was found between academics and
politicians in the area of cooperation among these various organizations. A seminar was recommended so that opinions
could be exchanged, discussed and finalized. 
                    About activities for quality control and evaluation of childcare centers services, it was found that working
standards were urgently needed and should be distributed to all centers.  Incentives for these centers to conform to the
standards were suggested to quicken the pace of development. 
                   Collective agreement was found among academics for 27 indices in checking the quality of childcare centers.
These should be the starting point for research and development in quality control for each childcare centers.  Indices that
were agreed upon by parents should also be considered as they were service recipients. 
                   Finally, the childcare centers should use the data for their own internal quality control to assess whether
their work process-planning, executing, evaluating, and improving-task into account information from the various sources
and various sources and various methods of execution available. 

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