{"id":184635,"date":"2026-06-30T14:44:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T14:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/184635\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T14:44:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T14:44:11","slug":"israeli-daycares-plagued-by-licensing-and-inspection-gaps-endangering-toddlers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/184635\/","title":{"rendered":"Israeli daycares plagued by licensing and inspection gaps, endangering toddlers"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Education Ministry does not have a complete map of unlicensed daycare centers, has not ensured that legally required camera systems are functioning, and does not inspect many licensed facilities frequently enough, State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman<\/a> found.<\/p>\n

The report, published Tuesday, examined oversight of daycare centers for children from birth through age three, a system which served around 212,000 toddlers in licensed facilities during the 2024-25 school year.<\/p>\n

It comes after years of criminal cases involving alleged and proven abuse in early-childhood frameworks. The audit cites a 2021 case in which a private daycare director was sentenced to nine-and-a-half years in prison for abuse and assault of toddlers. It also cites a 2023 case in which two caregivers received prison sentences between six- and- seven-years.<\/p>\n

Police data included in the report showed that 2,473 police files were opened between 2017 and 2024 on suspicion of assault or abuse involving children under three in daycare centers, family-care settings, or other toddler frameworks.<\/p>\n

An additional 278 police files were opened in the first half of 2025<\/p>\n

The police also told the comptroller that they could not determine whether footage from daycare cameras had been used as evidence in those cases.<\/p>\n

\"IllustrationIllustration of a daycare. (credit: YOSSI ALONI\/FLASH90)<\/p>\n

The audit found that the Education Ministry<\/a> did not have complete information on unlicensed daycare centers. In July 2025, it compiled an initial list of 683 facilities operating without licenses, but the list was neither comprehensive nor regularly updated.<\/p>\n

The number of private centers operating with licenses has increased though, rising by about 40% in three years, from 2,127 in the 2022-23 school year to 2,994 in 2024-25.<\/p>\n

Still, as of October 2025, the ministry had no comprehensive plan for identifying unlicensed facilities or encouraging them to enter the licensing system. District officials, especially inspectors, were left to locate unlicensed centers themselves.<\/p>\n

The ministry published an internal procedure for locating and handling unlicensed centers only in November 2025, after the audit had already begun.<\/p>\n

Oversight of licensed facilities was also limited. The number of daycare inspectors rose from 25 in 2021-22 to 61 in 2024-25, but each inspector was still responsible for an average of 83 facilities nationwide.<\/p>\n

In the Tel Aviv, Haifa<\/a>, and Jerusalem districts examined by the comptroller, 14% of licensed centers received no inspection at all in the 2023-24 school year, while another 43% received only one visit.<\/p>\n

Under the law, installing video cameras is a condition for receiving a daycare license; yet 148 of 3,300 facilities checked by the ministry in 2023-24 – about 4% – had no cameras at all.<\/p>\n

The ministry relied on signed declarations from operators that cameras had been installed. But the audit found that it had no effective built-in mechanism to verify those declarations before issuing a license.<\/p>\n

At least one malfunction preventing proper recording was found in 902 of 3,321 facilities inspected that year – around 27%.<\/p>\n

In 458 centers (14%), footage was not retained for the 30 days required by law.<\/p>\n

More than half of facilities connected to monitoring system had camera malfunctions<\/p>\n

The ministry also introduced a system designed to monitor failures in camera and recording systems. By July 2025, however, it had not been installed in 640 of 2,067 recognized daycares and in 2,653 of 2,994 private daycares.<\/p>\n

Among facilities connected to the monitoring system, 798 out of 1,472 – 54% – had camera malfunctions lasting at least three consecutive months between January 2024 and June 2025.<\/p>\n

According to the audit, regional officials generally notified operators about the failures but did not follow up to ensure that repairs had been made.<\/p>\n

The report also found gaps in the ministry\u2019s handling of people disqualified from working in a daycare because of relevant criminal records. In 18 of 80 cases examined, district officials said they had not inspected the facility after being informed that a person involved in its operation had been disqualified. In 52 of the 80 cases, the ministry had not received the daycare owner\u2019s declaration that the disqualified person was no longer involved.<\/p>\n

Englman called on the Education Ministry to proactively identify unlicensed centers<\/a> with local authorities, bring them under the daycare supervision law, and periodically examine whether its enforcement efforts are working.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Education Ministry does not have a complete map of unlicensed daycare centers, has not ensured that legally…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":184636,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[2738,33529,5574,37877,37,14506,29010],"class_list":["post-184635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-child-abuse","tag-childcare","tag-children","tag-comptroller-report","tag-israel","tag-matanyahu-englman","tag-state-comptroller"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116839596890269169","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184635\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/184636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}