Young or old, single or married, mother or father, if you are a parent, you understand the importance and difficulty of obtaining quality child care. As if raising a child was not difficult enough, throw in working and going to school, and the need for child care and difficulty in finding it is increased significantly.
The University of Houston-Clear Lake caters to non-traditional students, which means those working, those with families or those returning to school after a break. The average age of a UHCL student is 30.
Many Texas universities such as University of Houston, Rice University, Texas State University, San Jacinto Community College District, University of Texas and Lone Star College offer an on-campus child care program. As a university that accommodates non-traditional students, it only makes sense that UHCL offer the same.
Many of these child care programs are led by the universities’ School of Education and are considered lab schools, where students have some responsibility in administering and running the center in exchange for college credits.
In 2009, UHCL’s School of Education introduced a Bachelor of Applied Science in Interdisciplinary Studies degree pertaining to early childhood education. This new degree could be the first step on a journey in establishing a child care program at UHCL because it pertains directly to early childhood education.
UHCL has explored the issue of child care in the past. Each time the university has decided against it for various reasons including costs, the demographics of UHCL and the availability of space. The child care issue was last visited about 10 years ago. It’s time to readdress it.
An issue that has previously been raised is the ability of UHCL to provide space for a child care center. The fact of the matter is UHCL is a large campus that could easily house a new structure or at the very least, a portable building with a playground around it. An existing child care corporation, such as Kindercare or the YMCA could possibly assist in providing child care on campus.
Instead of the university viewing child care as a costly project to undertake, it should view child care as a strong asset to attract prospective students. A new child care program would also give students pursuing the new early childhood education degree some useful, hands-on experience to put on their resume.
UHCL is a great school for non-traditional students, however, administrators are lagging far behind on this issue. Ten years ago students needed child care on this campus. Today, that need is just as great if not greater.
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