- Below is the content from the press release--
(President: Tomoya Hoshi, Chuo-ku, Tokyo, hereinafter referred to as "Ururu") is pleased to announce that its online photo sales service for nursery schools and kindergartens, "en-photo", has been introduced simultaneously to all six public nursery schools in Kuki City, Saitama Prefecture.
"En-photo" is an online photo sales service for nursery schools and kindergartens that has been introduced at approximately 3,000 schools and is used by a cumulative total of approximately 200,000 parents (as of August 2021). We also dispatch photographers to preschools to provide families with cute photos that will help them preserve more children's memories.
KUKI CITY, SAITAMA PREFECTURE, WHICH IS ACTIVELY WORKING ON ICT IN CHILDCARE, HAS STARTED TO INTRODUCE "EN-PHOTO" AT ALL SIX PUBLIC NURSERIES IN KUKI CITY (SAKURA NURSERY, SUMIRE NURSERY, HIMAWARI NURSERY, AOBA NURSERY, CHUO NURSERY AND CHUO NURSERY BRANCH) FROM AUGUST 2021.
Comment from Kuki City Childcare Section
<保育園が抱えていた課題と、導入にあたっての懸念>
With regard to the sale of photographs at public nursery schools in Kuki City, the officers of the Parents' Association used to do all the work of developing, displaying, counting and collecting the money for the photographs taken by the caregivers. In recent years, however, the burden on the officers of the parents' association has become so great that it was decided to abolish the association from 2021 in order to reduce the burden of work and child-rearing. On the other hand, there were many requests from parents for the continuation of the photo sales. In this situation, we were looking for a way to sell the photos without being a burden for the parents and the school.
We were also concerned that it would be difficult to introduce an online service as the public nursery school uses a secure and stable connection, which would not allow us to upload the images we had taken. The school does not have a budget for photo sales and was concerned about the cost of implementing a system.
<「えんフォト」で解決できたこと>
En-photo" has an optional service called "upload service", which allows us to upload photo data on behalf of the school by simply sending an SD card by post. There are no postage costs for up to four times a year.
We were also able to keep the selling price per photo lower than when the parents' association ran the service in the past, so the introduction of "en-photo" had a secondary effect in addition to addressing our concerns.
The online photo sales service "en-photo" for group childcare facilities by Ururu Inc. has been introduced to all public nursery schools in Kuki City, Saitama Prefecture.
The introduction of childcare ICT services such as this photo sales service is progressing in public preschools. It is hoped that the ICT services will continue to be used in public facilities in many municipalities to reduce the burden on childcare workers and improve services for parents.
Let's have a look at the press release for more details.