There are multiple kinds of nursery school or kindergarten in Japan and those names are different from each other.
Available service and nursery systems are also different in some ways, which makes you a bit complicated.
Hereinto, I would like to explain the difference of “Hoikuen(保育園)”, “Hoikujo(保育所)”, “Yochien(幼稚園)“, which are the basic categories of nursery service in Japan.
Contents
- 1 Ninka-Hoikuen “認可保育園” (licensed kindergarten, nursery school)
- 2 Ninsho-Hoikuen “認証保育園” (Authentication nursery school)
- 3 Muninka-Hoikuen “無認可保育園” (Non-licensed kindergarten)
- 4 Yochien “幼稚園” (Kindergarten)
- 5 Baby hotel
- 6 In-house nursery center
- 7 Hospital nursery center
- 8 Yochien
- 9 Nintei-Kodomoen “認定こども園” (Certified center for early childhood education and care (ECEC))
- 10 Babysitter
- 11 Hoiku-mama “保育ママ” (day-care service)
Ninka-Hoikuen “認可保育園” (licensed kindergarten, nursery school)
Ninka-Hoikuen is a licensed nursery school or kindergarten approved by the governor of a municipality, that satisfies nursery service standards (width of a facility, the number of nursery teachers, meal services, disaster preventive operation, sanitary supervision) regulated by the government.
The application procedure of Ninka-Hoikuen needs to be gone through at a municipal office. “Child waiting list” becomes a social phenomenon and licensed kindergartens are flooded with quite a few applicants because its nursery fee is comparably cheaper than non-licensed one’s
Licensed kindergarten’s capacity is from 60 to 300(children). In the Tokyo area, mostly its capacity is around 100 and sufficient width is secured to each room. Every licensed kindergarten has a fixed reference area, whose width is 3.3㎡ per 0 or 1-year-old child. You can easily find a kindergarten that is comfortably spacious enough to bring up children freely with a wide garden in Tokyo.
Lately, the individuality of each kindergarten has been shown up outstandingly and they seek differentiation among each other regarding their uniqueness. Some of them put effort into the education of music and language.
There are roughly 3 types of licensed kindergartens (nursery school) in Japan
Koritsu-Hoikuen “公立保育園” (Public day care center, public kindergarten, nursery school)
A public daycare center is managed by a municipality. Municipal office is in charge of admission procedure so if you want to leave your child in a public daycare center, firstly you need to go to a city office to receive application forms and other documents for screening.
Nursery teachers are government employees
The difference between public nursery schools and private nursery schools
Shiritsu-Hoikuen “私立保育園” (Private kindergarten, nursery school)
Social welfare corporations, non-profit organizations also enter the nursery service market. Compared to public nursery schools, restrictions applied by a municipality are less and its education policy is quite unique. Some private kindergartens possess a mountain and make children play in the spacious nature field.
The difference between public nursery schools and private nursery schools
Kosetsu-Minei-Hoikuen “公設民営保育園” (Government-owned private kindergarten, nursery school)
This is a kindergarten managed by a private nursery service provider on behalf of the government or a municipality.
Nursery facilities are owned by the government or a municipality but nursery teachers are not government employees. Management policy is followed by public kindergarten’s policy so that teachers assignments and each held events are mostly the same as public kindergarten’s
Ninsho-Hoikuen “認証保育園” (Authentication nursery school)
Authentication nursery school is a unique nursery school in Tokyo. Kindergartens in a large urban area where it’s difficult to secure sufficient space face difficult problems to complete the nursery standard (installment standard of licensed kindergarten) regulated by the government. To solve this problem, Tokyo established an authentication nursery school system that meets the characteristics and circumstances of Tokyo.
Tokyo appealed many companies to enter the nursery service industry market and established a system to promote free competition between companies in order to raise nursery service quality. As a result, authentication nursery school could respond to various demands.
There are many authentication nursery schools installed in station buildings, considering the convenience to pick up a child for busy commuters. Amazingly, some of them open until 9 to 10 p.m. for working mothers.
Nursery fee is relatively more expensive than usually licensed kindergarten. Instead, you can go through the application procedure directly with the nursery school. If you find a favorite one, it can be negotiable directly without passing through the municipality procedure. It is a great advantage for parents to learn details about the nursery system from the people working there.
Likewise, many municipalities that take in an authentication nursery school system except for Tokyo support a subsidy to reduce parent’s financial burden. For example, in case that amount of time you leave a child in a nursery school is 220 hours a month, if a child is 3 years old or younger, it costs you 80,000 yen for nursery fee and if a child is older than 3 years old, then nursery fee is fixed not to exceed over 77,000 yen.
What is Ninshohoikuen “認証保育園” (Authentication nursery school)?
Muninka-Hoikuen “無認可保育園” (Non-licensed kindergarten)
This is a kindergarten or a nursery school that doesn’t satisfy the nursery standards regulated by the government but there are so many wonderful non-licensed kindergartens that will more than compensate for the shortcomings.
Baby hotel and in-house nursery center are the examples that respond to the demands of parents that a licensed kindergarten can’t respond to. When you once hear a word of “non-licensed”, you may not have a good impression against all the kindergartens that has the word on top of it but there is a case that nursery service quality is much higher than usual licensed kindergartens because of seeking differentiation to survive under harsh competitive market and putting effort to respond to potential demands
For example, generally, you always need to have fair reasons to leave your child to a licensed kindergarten like you can’t look after your child because you work very hard in the daytime. There are as many applicants that form a line to be admitted to leave a child as municipal offices create applicant waiting lists. It is quite natural that you are required to have justifiable reasons to leave a child in fairness to other people listed on waiting lists.
However, in case of non-licensed kindergarten, even if you don’t have any right reasons to leave a child, for example, you want to leave a child because you want to enjoy your vacation, it will respond to your requirements. Picking up time is also flexible. Depending on the kindergarten, it opens until 11:00 p.m.
It has a very unique nursery service that takes in alternative education and actually some of them work in collaboration with private educational institutions.
Yochien “幼稚園” (Kindergarten)
Yochien is a kind of pre-school regulated by School Education Law. This is categorized as the school the same as elementary school and junior high school. However, Yochien is not a compulsory education school such as elementary school and junior high school. admission eligibility is applied to 3-year-old children to 6-year-old children to prepare for going on to elementary school.
Nursery contents for children are followed by a training project outline for Yochien regulated by the Ministry of Health, labor, and welfare.
| School Education law | Child Welfare Law | |
| Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports Science and Technology | Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare | |
| school | child welfare facility | |
| Yochien (if it is public Yochien, go to municipality) | Municipal office | |
| set by a municipality | ||
| Training project outline for Yochien | Nursery school childcare outline | |
| It dedicates to education in keeping with child’s characteristics | Education and childcare need to be suitable for positive improvement of welfare for children | |
| From 3 years old child to 6 years old child | From baby younger than 1 year old to 6 year old child | |
| Kindergarten teacher | Nursery teacher | |
| 4 hours (standard) | 8 hours (standard) |
Baby hotel
It is a private childcare facility that takes in service of 24-hour child care and mid-night child care. Price and quality are extremely varied and wide-ranging
In-house nursery center
It is a nursery center for workers under child rearing. A lot of companies support women’s empowerment and arrange an environment for women to do both child-rearing and working.
You can rush to your child immediately at a moment’s notice so it is flexibly adjustable to your convenience and it provides a service only when you come to the office. This is a great advantage for working people.
There are two concerning points about this nursery center.
The first thing is about physical burden when you take a child to an office. For those who commute to offices from a distant place by train, it is quite tough to get on a crowded train with a small child. You always pay serious attention to the baby not to lose. You can’t take your eyes off your child for a second in an overcrowded train. You should be already tried when you arrive at an office.
Second, concerning point is that the width of the space of each room is limited because the nursery facility is simply installed in one corner of a floor of a building rent by a company. In-house nursery center is not applied to nursery standard so nursery staffs look after children in extremely narrow room space in some cases. Moreover no gardens outside. If you want to leave a child in a spacious environment that children can play lively and actively, its environment is totally against your ideal.
You just look in-house nursery center as a nursery facility that complements your convenience to help your hard-working circumstance.
Hospital nursery center
In-house nursery service is said to have been started by hospital uniquely to help nurses who are on shift work that is 24 hours on and 24 hours off.
There are a lot of movements nowadays that hospital cosigns the nursery management to a major company and contributes o the environment creation that women can work at ease.
Yochien
It provides nursery services to equal to or more than 3 years old child for 4 hours in the daytime. Generally, it is recognized as a pre-school to teach initial education to children before they go on to elementary school. Group education is one of the featured Yochien policy.
These days, Yochien that adopt after-hours childcare which you can leave your child until 6 o’clock in response to the demand of busy parents.
Nintei-Kodomoen “認定こども園” (Certified center for early childhood education and care (ECEC))
ECEC is a childcare system established in 2016 to integrate kindergartens (Yochien) and nursery schools (Hoikuen). There are 4 types systems which are “collaborative nursery of Yochien and Hoikuen”, “Yochien type nursery”, “Hoikuen type nursery”, “municipal discretion type”. This system is very young and has so many points to improve.
ECEC has originally a role to provide a solution for mothers who hesitate over which to choose between Yochien and Hoikuen
3-year-old or older children receive education from a teacher for about 4 hours (Yochien function).
Likewise, parents can choose nursery time from 4 hours to 8 hours (Hoikuen function)
Moreover, it supports child rearing counseling to help mothers who are worried about their child rearing skills.
Babysitter
A babysitter is dispatched from a nursery service company. In the metropolitan area, so many nursery service providers compete ruthlessly to find demands from the child waiting list. You can easily find one to receive service if you live in the Tokyo area.
Nowadays, babysitter company makes attempt to do collaborative education that integrates ordinary nursery service and music education or physical education to make the differentiation.
Some companies start child’s pick- up service to diversify the services in response to various demands
Hoiku-mama “保育ママ” (day-care service)
“Hoiku-mama” literally means “nursery mother”. This is a generic name of nursery workers and nursery facilities that take children younger than 3 years old in a house and look after them.
Nursery fees and service contents are different depending on the municipality. Freelance nursery workers who want to enter this nursery business need to satisfy the condition that they provide a place such as their houses to take care of children.
It is called “nursery mother” in Japanese but it is possible for a man to do this childcare. This service is quite the same as a babysitter service. However, the headquarters that manages this business are municipalities. So it deliberately changes the name to clarify the difference.