Where do I put my child on a daycare waiting list, and how do I see my position?
We live in Hwaseong and every daycare near us says they are full and that we should join a waiting list. I cannot tell whether this is done at each centre individually or through one system, and nobody could tell me what number we are in the queue. Can a foreign family apply online, and how is the order actually decided?
1 Answer
Apply through the Childcare Portal, known as Ai-Sarang (childcare.go.kr), either on the website or the app. It is one central system rather than a list kept by each centre, and you can hold applications at up to three daycares at once. Your position in the queue is visible there at any time.
There is one thing that confuses almost everyone. The order is not purely first come, first served. Points are assigned for circumstances such as both parents working or having multiple children, and the ranking follows those points. A family who applied after you can legitimately appear ahead. So a position that does not move for a while is not a malfunction, and the more useful thing to check is whether the point categories that apply to you have actually been recorded.
Foreign families can apply, but registration on the site sometimes fails at the identity verification step. If that happens, you can apply in person at the daycare instead, and the Hwaseong childcare support centre will walk you through it by phone. Childcare fee support depends on nationality, though some local governments run their own supplementary schemes, so ask Hwaseong directly rather than assuming you are excluded.
While you wait, two things help. Public daycares have the longest queues, so applying to private and home-based centres at the same time is more realistic, and if your employer runs a workplace daycare that route is usually much faster. For the gap, ask the childcare support centre about hourly care and the child care service. If Korean is difficult, the Danuri call centre on 1577-1366 advises in several languages, and 129 is the health and welfare counselling line.