Better plan required for early childhood

CHILDCARE PROVIDERS have called for a 10-year plan for the early childcare and education of every child in the State up to six years of age.

Start Strong has welcomed the free pre-school year scheme which began for most three year olds yesterday, but it said that it should be part of a comprehensive early childhood care and education programme.

The Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) programme, which replaces the early childhood supplement, is the largest pre-school programme ever undertaken in the State and is costing €170 million a year.

Due to the severe weather, the Minister for Children, Barry Andrews, has extended the deadline for parents to register from January 22nd to January 29th.

The minister said the move was prompted by the cold snap, which had caused the closure of many primary and pre-schools and had, in all likelihood, delayed the start of the ECCE scheme for most services.

The Start Strong organisation, which used to be known as the Irish Childcare Policy Network and includes groups such as Barnados and the National Women's Council of Ireland, has put forward a discussion document entitled Children 2020.

It sets out 10 principles which it feels should govern a comprehensive childcare plan for children up to the age of six.

It maintains that the most important thing for newborns is that a parent should be able to stay at home with them until they are at least a year old.

It recommends that paid parental leave should be extended to a year so a parent can afford to remain at home.

A national plan should be in place to encourage paid paternity leave (it is currently optional for employers to pay) and more should be done to encourage the splitting of paid leave between parents, an option not available except in extreme circumstances.

It also suggests that a national plan for early childhood should regulate all paid childminders and there should be graduate-led professional workplace creche-type facilities which would ensure a lower staff turnover and a high ratio of staff to children.

At the same time, the State must make the investment to ensure that childcare is both affordable and accessible.

Start Strong says it will tender in the coming weeks for research to be carried out exploring the options involved.

“The specifics will be coming from the research. We need solutions that are evidence-based. We hope to have a fully costed plan by the end of the year,” said Start Strong director Ciairín de Buis.

Start Strong argues that the provision of early childcare and education should be a priority despite the recession, a point accepted by the National Economic and Social Council’s (NESC’s) report published last year.

The National Competitiveness Council (NCC) found that Ireland was under-investing in services for younger children and that the need to target expenditure where returns were greatest remained strong. It also stated that Ireland was under-investing in services for younger people.

Ms de Buis said investment in children had been shown in repeated studies to yield up to 16 times the original investment in later life.

“As the OECD put it, we need to invest in the Dora the Explorer years not the Facebook years,” she said.