It is difficult for the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry to monitor every nursery as not all are registered with them, said its minister Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail.

"We want to encourage all nurseries to register but they are less likely to register because they feel this complicates their work.

"There are some nurseries that fall through our monitoring net, such as nurseries taking care of fewer than four children younger than four years old," Wan Azizah said during the Minister's Question Time session in the Dewan Rakyat today.

Nurseries taking care of four children and below are not required to register with the ministry under the Child Care Centre Act.

The ministry wants such nurseries to register with it so the ministry can get better information and empower the monitoring system for child care centres, said Wan Azizah, who is also the deputy prime minister.

"Problems also arise when people give their children to their family members (to take care of) because those are not considered nurseries," she added.

There is also a lack of officers in the ministry to conduct monitoring on all nurseries throughout the country, she said.

Wan Azizah had previously announced that a special committee had been set up to look into possible improvements for the Child Care Centre Act relating to home-based babysitters.