Social media platforms in Jordan carry hundreds - if not thousands - of advertisements offering childcare services through unlicensed home nurseries. The Ministry of Social Development has recorded 30 violations involving unlicensed nurseries since the start of the year, and told Al Ghad that the majority of those cases involved home-based facilities.
اضافة اعلان
Al Ghad identified a number of social media posts promoting unlicensed childcare services, including overnight stays, shift-based care, and hourly, daily or weekly arrangements for children from three months to three years of age.
According to ministry data, Jordan has 1,384 licensed and operating nurseries: 707 privately run, 603 in private and public workplaces, and 74 home nurseries.
Minister of Social Development Wafa Bani Mustafa told a recent meeting of the parliamentary women's committee that licensed nurseries serve approximately 55,360 children and employ around 5,536 workers.
The ministry told Al Ghad that the most common violations include exceeding permitted child capacity, operating without a licence, placing too many children in the care of a single caregiver, and accepting children outside the permitted age groups.
The ministry said it responds to complaints or observations about any nursery by following up and verifying the situation. If a nursery is found to be operating without a licence, the case is referred to the administrative governor for appropriate legal action.
The ministry noted that while home nurseries account for most violations, some private nurseries are also non-compliant, and some accept children without having obtained a licence.
On cases that reach the courts, the ministry said parents typically resort to legal action when disputes arise over financial matters or fees, or in cases of neglect.
Muhammad Al-Momani, head of the Nurseries Owners Syndicate, told Al Ghad that unlicensed home nurseries pose risks to children's safety, health and wellbeing, and also disadvantage licensed nurseries that bear operational costs and must meet legal and regulatory requirements.
Al-Momani said the Ministry of Social Development has established a licensing system for home nurseries and set conditions to govern their operation. He said those conditions are not burdensome, and that support and assistance are available to help set up and equip a nursery, making non-compliance a deliberate breach of the law.
He said unlicensed home nurseries take in children indiscriminately, with a single room sometimes holding 20 or 25 children of different ages while the homeowner simultaneously manages household duties - a situation he said raises serious concerns about the standard of care and safety provided.
Al-Momani said some of these nurseries attract parents through low-cost social media advertising, encouraging families to use services that operate outside any regulatory oversight. He said there are 'thousands of advertisements' promoting unlicensed childcare on social media platforms.
Those advertisements appear alongside a detailed regulatory framework. Nurseries Regulation No. 6 of 2024, together with related instructions, sets out specific conditions for home nurseries covering the operator's qualifications and the physical and operational standards the facility must meet.
Under the regulation, the nursery operator must be a resident of the home being licensed - whether as owner or tenant - and must obtain written consent from the property owner. Operators must hold at least a secondary school certificate and an accredited training qualification.
Additional requirements include a health clearance certificate demonstrating physical and psychological fitness to care for children, and a current, valid criminal record certificate covering the operator and all adult family members living in the home.
On the physical side, the space used for the nursery must not exceed 25 percent of the total home area and must be at least 20 square metres. The residential character of the home must be maintained, and external signage is prohibited except for a very small sign on the door.
Capacity is capped at a maximum of 10 children, with at least two square metres of space per child. Home nurseries may accept children from birth up to four years and eight months, split into two age groups. Capacity is limited to five children under two years old, or seven children aged between two and four years, with a combined maximum of six children and two infants, and the same two-square-metre-per-child space requirement.
The regulations do not impose any gender-separation requirements; organisation is by age group only. Given the limited space in home nurseries, younger children may be separated within a designated area of the same room rather than in entirely separate rooms.
On nutrition, caregivers may not prepare meals for the children; food must be prepared in advance by the children's families or purchased externally with their prior consent, and must be refrigerated immediately and kept for no more than one day.
Infant care standards require caregivers to hold infants while feeding them and to avoid giving bottles inside cots. Bottles must be cleaned and sterilised after each use, and safe bottled water must be provided.
Al-Momani said children in licensed nurseries benefit from a structured environment with age-appropriate rooms, qualified staff, supervision and monitoring, including CCTV access, and oversight from multiple official bodies.
On enforcement, Al-Momani said referring violations to the administrative governor was not, in his view, a sufficient deterrent - particularly given the difficulty of monitoring the large number of unlicensed nurseries. He called for stronger measures and meaningful penalties against those providing childcare outside the legal framework.
He added that the problem extends beyond home nurseries to other practices, including some entertainment venues that regularly receive children on a monthly subscription basis, and some schools or kindergartens accepting children outside permitted arrangements. He said these practices represent ways of circumventing the nursery licensing system.
Al-Momani called for greater public awareness of the risks of placing children in unlicensed facilities, saying that using an illegal nursery could leave a family without legal protection or recourse if a child is harmed. He said the syndicate is preparing awareness publications for parents on the importance of choosing licensed nurseries, and called for workshops and seminars involving official bodies, specialists and parents to raise awareness of the issue.
Jordan's National Policy for Early Childhood Development and Care sets out a broad vision for developing the nursery sector and addressing its structural challenges. It notes that institutional nurseries cover only about three percent of children under five, at an average monthly cost of approximately 116 dinars. To address geographic disparities and high costs, the policy calls for expanding accessible and inclusive nurseries and services, prioritising remote areas, low-income families and children with disabilities. It also focuses on targeted care-cost support for families in greatest need and for those seeking employment, and on expanding affordable alternatives, while engaging the private sector through incentives, financing and corporate social responsibility programmes.
This article was originally written in Arabic for Al Ghad.
