Webcams keep a parental eye on classroom

Working parent Jacqueline Lin has found a way to keep an eye on her four-year-old son while he's at kindergarten - she uses the Internet.

Ms Lin said she had been looking frequently at the computer screen since the Wisdom Castle Nursery and Kindergarten subscribed to Kideowatch.com, a Web site that allows her to see online what her son is doing at school.

'Since I am always very busy, it's difficult for me to ask teachers about my son's progress,' she said. 'With the service, I can have a close look at what he has gone through at school every day.'

Kideowatch.com provides subscribers with access to the classroom or playroom by installing cameras that continually produce snapshots. Services of this type are now being widely used by kindergartens and nurseries in the United States.

'Our service can open a window into the children's world,' said Kideowatch.com operations director Steve Bauer.

Some educators, however, have criticised the service as over the top, an invasion of privacy, and awkward for teachers.

The Wisdom Castle Nursery and Kindergarten in Hong Kong pays $4,000 per month for video camera monitoring. School administrator Clara Lau Man said about 70 per cent of the parents had subscribed to the service, and teachers were comfortable with the arrangement.

But Hong Kong Kindergarten Association president and principal of St Teresa Kindergartens Group Wu Chiu-ha said such a service was 'unhealthy'.

'Many parents now put cameras everywhere at home and at school to see if their children are properly taken care of,' Ms Wu said. 'I think they have got too carried away.

'Chatting and fighting at school are normal in child development, but not 24-hour close monitoring.'

She said teaching would also be affected because kindergarten teachers could easily became unnaturally tense when placed under the camera.

But Mr Bauer believed this would not be a problem if a kindergarten was proud of its teachers and the curriculum if offered.

'The use of this kind of service suggests that the school carries an open-policy attitude.

'Parents will also be more confident about the quality of the education provided to their kids,' he added.

Dr Margaret Wong Ngai-chun, senior lecturer at the School of Early Childhood Education at Hong Kong Institute of Education, said good communications between parents and the kindergarten should suffice.

'Kindergartens nowadays hold many parent-teacher conferences and parents are always informed of their children's study progress. I wonder how much more the service can do.

'Besides, direct interaction and observation in daily life is a much better way to understand their kids.'

Dr Wong also addressed the problem of privacy. 'It's important to note that parents are not just watching their own children in the classroom, but also the others' kids,' she said.

'Have they obtained their parents' consent beforehand?'