The difference between public nursery schools and private nursery schools

A Nursery school classified into “private” and “public” is only licensed one. (government certified nursery school)
Non-Licensed one doesn’t have classification of “private” and “public”. When you hear the difference of “private” and “public”, you may imagine weather its nursery school is run by a private company or the government and you may tend to think that nursery fee of private one is more expensive than that of public one.

Actually, basic nursery fees of both of them are not really different.
There is few difference in prices range of nursery fee, however, there are pros and cons about the content of services between private one and public one. You just pay attention to which service and environment is suitable for giving your child a good education.

Fundamental difference between public nursery school and private nursery school

Public nursery schools are managed by a municipality. Nursery teachers in public nursery schools are basically government employees except for short-term, part-time employees.

In contrast, private nursery schools are managed by an educational corporation, non-profit organizations, private companies that provide nursery service.

Currently, there is a movement that municipalities privatize owned nursery business. This movement is based on the governmental policy that aims for improving nursery services, and for reducing labor cost to somehow raise the operating cost of municipalities.

Are nursery fees of both private and public nursery schools the same?

Both of them are licensed nursery schools (government-certified nursery school ) and both nursery fee’s price rage is the same. Nursery fees are decided by the municipal standard of previous year’s income of your household and the makeup of the family.

Nursery fees are different depending on the municipality but the government regulates fundamental price range structure for nursery fees that municipalities shall collect fees from 0 yen to 104,000 yen.

There is also a system that reduces a financial burden of parents like a second child costs you half price and third child is at no cost at some municipalities.

There is also a case that a private nursery school request you special charge not included in government’s fundamental price range structure, which is based on nursery school’s unique rule such as designated uniform, laundry service, and special curriculum such as piano, sports lessons for those who want to take the course.

Features of public nursery schools

Quality of education content is unchangeable

A municipality put its effort to provide infant education without having inequality in its content and educational mission by sharing information between nursery facilities located in the area of a municipality.

Education level is based on the educational standard regulated by the government. Whichever nursery school you choose within the area of a municipality, the quality of education contents is pretty much the same.

A lot of veteran nursery teachers

The number of nursery teachers in public nursery schools tends to be larger than that in private nursery schools and because of stable employment so there are so many teachers who have been working for many years.

A lot of public nursery schools put effort into training young teachers by making the most of the advantage of many veteran teachers.

Teacher’s transference

There is staff reassignment between nursery schools managed by a municipality . Teachers have transfers within the area of municipality.
For that reason, a class teacher has a case not to be able to take charge of the same class at the change of the year. Other than this thing, there are many policies and rules regulated by municipalities.

You many have disadvantage that a teacher to whom your child gets attached transfers to another nursery school all of a sudden.

Wide garden

Most of public nursery schools have wide garden with sufficient play equipments. Some nursery schools open garden publicly in the morning time and call out to neighboring children to play together.

Features of private nursery school

Even though it is classified as “private”, because it is financially supported by a municipality and citified by the government, quality of nursery services, the number of nursery teachers and equipment satisfy the condition of standards required by the government.

Unique education policy

Management companies and organizations are individually independent so education and management policy differs depending on the nursery schools. Features of private nursery schools are that each one of nursery schools follows unique curriculum individually.

Unique education contents not restricted by nursery standard

It is quite common for private nursery schools to adopt unique curriculum of music, sports, eurhythmics, language education as standard infant education. Other than these ones, some private nursery schools provide unique education to develop infant’s specific field. There is a case that a nursery school prepare private lessons of instruments and programming for early education.

In addition, private nursery schools tend to strengthen preparation to go on to elementary school. It teaches knowledge about ethic and sociality to learn how to behave in school and how children can get along well with friends in school enjoyably.

Flexible services to busy parents

It all depends, but nursery time of privater nursery schools tends to be longer than that of public nursery school and be flexile about overtime childcare. Some private nursery schools provide a web app that parents can observe children during childcare through monitoring camera. It is good attempt for mothers who work long.

Likewise, laundry service, pick-up service and nigh meal service for children whose mother pick up very late are available in some nursery schools that consider parent’s working situation. You may find a good private nursery schools which provide flexible services that is suitable for your routine of life.

However, in private nursery schools, thought of the headquarter that runs nursery schools directly reflects on its services and operations, which is sometimes incompatible with parent’s thought. For example, if nursery policy is based on a specific religion, your child may receive an education of reading Bible as one of curriculum. You may have to find nursery schools that provide balanced education without biased religious education if you don’t want to make your child receive such an education.

The government resources are allocated partially to management of private nursery schools but there are some private nursery schools that hire only young teachers because of no financial leeway of labor cost, whose factor influences on the nursery service quality.

Moreover, rent price of a room or a building tends to be more expensive in proportion to getting closer to the metropolitan area so that private nursery schools located in the Metropolitan area, Tokyo tend to be installed in a building or one room of an apartment. It is not rare that nursery schools without garden outside in Tokyo. They face reality that it is quite difficult to cover all the costs for managing nursery services with own fund and partial subsidies from a municipality.

Both public and private nursery schools combine both advantages and disadvantages

The most important thing is how you could find a nursery school that help your family’s life in the present circumstances. It is quite obvious there are some points you may not like and others you may like. Sometimes you need to compromise your requirement to nursery services in order to win admission of a nursery school.

However, as much as possible, you should find one which is suitable for your working situation and your education policy.