Child Care in Colleges are Essential - Essay Example

That these women are in school should not be a hindrance to their desires. Universities and other colleges could support their student-parents through a number of ways. One is funding. These could be through opening college-based day care centers on site in campuses. These should be operating during convenient hours to ensure all student-parents manage to go to class without worrying about their children. Some universities and colleges receive grants to help run day care centers for student parents within their colleges.

This is a move in a positive direction in a bid to increase the number of students who continue with their studies after giving birth while still pursuing their degree courses. Life is difficult enough for student parents, hence the importance of affordable and flexible day care programs to help alleviate their problems. Furthermore, to put the minds of these parents at ease, these day- care programs should be accredited by relevant bodies to ensure that the children are not only safe, but also well taken care of.

The curriculum for such programs should also be at par with state and national standards, to ensure that the children are being taken care of the same way other children in non-campus day care centers are. Funding is an important aspect in ensuring success of day care programs in colleges and universities. Funding can come in form of grants from government agencies for children or education through lobbying by the universities and colleges administrations (U.S. Department of Education 1-2). Funding can also come directly from the university or college administration itself.

Funding is imperative in the running of day care centers for student parents in colleges since most of these do not have steady or well paying jobs that could afford them more expensive day care programs. The funding cold go towards building or renovating unused campus buildings to convert them into day care centers, materials and labor required to do this, furnishing the day care centers and paying the people who will be involved in the day to day running of the day care centers. The student parents could be asked to chip in a little money, though not too much, in order to ensure they partake in the running and maintenance of the day care centers, and that it is not free.

Given the fact that most student parents face more challenges and responsibilities than students who are not parents, the former are most likely to perform dismally in their studies (Price 3-6). Furthermore, the stress that comes with raising a child, studying and probably working part time may take a toll on these parents, especially if they are single parents. With this kind of background, student parents are likely to drop out of school to take care of their children. This has an adverse effect of the economic and social well being of the parent and child.

Second to funding is flexibility of the day care programs. It is pointless to start day care centers in colleges and universities that operate between times that interfere with the student parents’ academics (Anderson and Dektar 6-8). Day care centers that are closed too early or open too late means that parents have to skip classes while they wait for the day care cent