The influence of child care giving institutions on the development of children under eight years in Tanzania: the case study of day care centres of Ilala municipal council in Dar es Salaam

This study investigated ways in which day care centres influence the development of children under eight years. It concentrated on the case of day care centres in Ilala municipality in Dar es Salaam. Specifically, it sought to assess the provision of physical and psychosocial services in Day care Centres for the development of children under eight years in relation to child development milestone standards; examine the provision of intellectual services in Day care centres;identify children’s accessibility to services provided in the day care centres; and analyse knowledge or ability of Day care centres’ assistants in understanding and interpreting child development policies , acts, regulations and government guidelines for provision of care services to children under eight years.In this study, qualitative approach was applied through cross-sectional design. Seventy respondents were interviewed and observed, and documentary reviews visited. Of the 20, only six day care centres including Keko Prison day care centre, Segerea Prison day care centre, Msimbazi centre, Tabata Christ the King Day care centre, Wivo day care centre, and Baby Flour Day care centre were purposely selected for the study. Findings of this study can be generalized to other municipalities in Dar es Salaam.It was confirmed by all respondents that children under eight years were provided with inadequate and inequitable physical, psychosocial, and intellectual care and support services in day care centres. These included love, moral and material support, table manners, speaking, confidence building, personality development, hygiene services, first aid, and religious and counselling services. The Intellectual services included physical education, reading, writing, drawing, identification of things, counting objects, singing, telling stories, proverbs, riddles, idioms, and other sayings. It was found in the field that children were hardly accessible to these services in day care centres. Children from low-income families were dropping out from centres due to lack of school fees. It was also found that day care centres’ assistants hardly understood and interpreted official documents that help the development of children. This was attributed to their low level of education and grandiloquent words or jargons used in these documents. Inadequate and inequitable provision of services affects the welfare of children. Therefore, recommendations were provided to stakeholders provide adequate services for children’s welfare.