Osan City Opens 41st Public Childcare Center 'Sinnae Beonggae-tteul Childcare Center'

[Suwon Ilbo=Reporter Seo Dong-young] Osan City opened Sinnae Beonggae-tteul Childcare Center, its 41st public childcare facility located within the Seodong Childcare Town building, on the 2nd.

Sinnae Beonggae-tteul Childcare Center was acquired and remodeled from a private childcare facility through the Ministry of Health and Welfare's Living SOC Complex Project, receiving 1.1 billion won in national and provincial subsidies. It is located in front of the Seodong Shin Dong-a Apartment complex.

The facility is designed to allow children using the childcare town to enjoy and play in nature-friendly creative play spaces. With a total floor area of 227㎡, it comprises four childcare rooms (play rooms), four restrooms, a kitchen, a teachers' room and other interior facilities, teaching materials and equipment, and is configured with a capacity of 40 children.

With this, Osan City has surpassed 33% in the utilization rate of public childcare centers, which is the highest level among local governments with a population of 200,000 or more nationwide.

Osan City Mayor Gwak Sang-wook said, "We will pay more careful attention to enhance the quality of comfortable and safe infant and early childhood care environments beyond the quantitative growth of public childcare," and added, "We will continue to make greater efforts toward childcare quality befitting a 'birth and childcare city' where parents and children are happy."

Meanwhile, the Childcare Town facility is promoting the creation of nature-friendly play spaces (I Love Play Park) and the Together Growing Center for elementary school after-school care in addition to the public childcare center, which are scheduled to be completed in mid-April and commence operations in May.