The Ministry of Social Affairs has begun a comprehensive field survey to ensure all nursery schools in Qatar are in compliance with safety and security standards.

Assistant undersecretary Ahmed Nasr al-Nasr has said in a statement to the local Arabic daily Arrayah that women inspectors of the Family Development Affairs at the ministry are engaged in the survey and based on their report the schools that are found to be unsuitable to function in their present premises will be granted two months to shift to a new place that has all the mandatory safety and security arrangements. Any institution that fails to meet the conditions will be ordered to close down permanently.

He also indicated that a committee, consisting of representatives from the Family Development Centre, the Hamad Hospital and the Supreme Council for Education, has been formed to prepare a manual of guidelines for the proper functioning of the nursery schools. It will focus on the academic and the non-academic aspects, including safety and security requirements.

No licence for a nursery will be issued before a team from the ministry inspects the premises.

It has been agreed with the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Urban Planning and the Ministry of Business and Trade that commercial registration for any new nursery school should be issued with the consent of the Ministry of Social Affairs.

The new requirements come after more than a dozen children died in a fire at the upscale Villaggio mall on May 28.

According to a recent report, illegal nursery schools and kindergartens continue to thrive in Qatar despite the authorities keeping a close watch on all such facilities across the country.

Many such centres have obviously flourished due to the patronage of low-income families who could ill-afford the licensed ones which are quite expensive.

The proposed law to govern the functioning of nursery schools in Qatar would lay greater stress on the safety and the security of the premises besides health and hygiene and the academic qualifications of those who run it.

“It will be mandatory for every new nursery when applying for a licence to obtain a certificate from the Civil Defence Department stating that it fulfills the safety and security requirements,” a top official of the Family Development affairs had earlier said.

The official also had appealed to parents that they should not admit their children to a nursery which did not hold a proper licence, including a commercial registration number.