Daycare centers as a means towards women empowerment in higher education institutions in Ethiopia: Exploring practices, roles, and challenges

Nowadays, daycare center at workplace is taken as one of the interventions for women empowerment, child development, and institutional effectiveness. Similarly, Ethiopian government is committed to empower working mothers through different policy directions and initiatives. From various policy interventions, establishing daycare centers at all federal government institutions was taken as one of intervention aiming to create a women friendly institution to improve women participation in labour force and securing the wellbeing of children. Therefore, this research was aimed to explore the practices, roles, and challenges of daycare centers in two selected public universities in Ethiopia. To this end, a qualitative approach with a case study research design was employed. A purposive sampling technique was used to select participants and study sites. Thus, daycare centers at Bahir Dar University and University of Gondar with a total of 14 participants were selected. Data was collected through semi structured interviews and document reviews with parents, caregivers, management bodies and gender professionals from University of Gondar, Bahir Dar University and Ministry of Women and Social Affairs. Thematic data analysis technique was also used to analyze and interpret the data. The findings show that daycare services were started five years ago at selected universities. The basic services were caring for children through feeding, playing, sleeping to keep the social, cognitive, and physical development of children when parents are at workplace. These centers were also playing a paramount role in empowering working mothers economically, socially, educationally and leadership participation. Despite these positive contributions, there were some challenges that affected the implementation of its basic services from care providers, mothers, and management bodies. These challenges were associated with facilities, materials, human resources, workplace ethics, monitoring and evaluation, and commitment related. In conclusion, establishing daycare centers at workplace is a promising strategy that aimed to contribute for women empowerment, child development, women friendly institutions and gender equality at large. To improve the overall qualities and capacities of the centers, it needs certain interventions from all stakeholder’s such as federal government, Universities, parents, and caregivers.