A Proposal for a Reserved Integration Plan Focusing on the Parental Needs of Kindergartens and Daycare Centers: Centering on S City

The purpose of this study is to identify the needs of parents for kindergartens and daycare centers in S city and to suggest ways to bridge the gap, and based on this, we intend to propose the direction of integration of kindergartens and daycare centers. In S city, most of the kindergartens are national and public kindergartens, and daycare centers consist of national and public kindergartens, private, workplace, and family daycare centers. It is an area that minimizes the burden on parents and exemplarily presents the operation model of public kindergartens. Therefore, it is intended to identify differences according to the use of parents who use national and public kindergartens and daycare centers, and to suggest ways to resolve them as a way to integrate kindergartens and daycare centers. A focused-group interview was conducted with 54 parents who send their children to kindergartens and daycare centers in S city. As a result, kindergarten parents were satisfied with the lack of parental burden, the operation of children-centered, play-centered curriculum, the sharing of children's learning with parents, the working environment of teachers with low stress index, sufficient and diverse facilities, and high-quality free meals. They were dissatisfied with the deviation of curriculum operation by teacher, specialized activities that are not diverse and high in quality, poor snacks, communication problems with teachers and kindergartens, poor working environment of teachers, and non-flexible operation hours. Parents of daycare centers were satisfied with the operation of various special activities, a variety of morning snacks, easy and comfortable communication, and flexible operating hours, and were not satisfied with the difference in the cost of parents' burden, special activities that are not high in quality, the quality of meals, narrow classroom, lack of communication about learning and growth, and poor teacher working environment. In conclusion, measures to bridge the gap between daycare centers and kindergartens are to ensure equal quality of kindergartens and daycare centers, equalization of curriculum operating hours, complete free education, and equal treatment of teachers.