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Start Strong e-newsletter - November 2010
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Dear colleague,
Welcome to the November issue of our e-newsletter. On 17th November, we launched both our Pre-Budget Submission and our Children 2020 report, Planning Now, for the Future. Building on research findings and on the consultation process we carried out earlier this year, we have set out a vision for the future of young children's care and education in Ireland, as well as a series of proposals for immediate actions. Given the crisis in Ireland's public finances, our Children 2020 project is even more important than we envisaged when we first began the project. Of course actions are needed to reduce the budget deficit (and our report includes a series of recommendations that will cost little or nothing), but it is essential that the Government also adopts measures that we know will contribute to the long-term well-being and prosperity of our society. Start Strong believes that the provision of high quality care and education for all young children should be central to reform plans as there is clear evidence of substantial, long-term benefits of quality early care and education for children, for the economy and for society as a whole. Our latest report, Children 2020: Planning Now, for the Future, charts a way forward. In the next phase of the Children 2020 project, we will be working closely with Goodbody Economic Consultants to identify the economic costs and benefits of our proposals. |
In this issue
News from Start Strong
Policy focus: Northern Ireland
Policy focus: international
Research focus
Updates
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Children 2020: Planning Now, for the Future
On 17th November, we launched the report of the first phase of our Children 2020 project. The report offers both a vision for the future of young children's care and education in Ireland and proposals for immediate actions. We have called it Children 2020: Planning Now, for the Future as our proposals aim to build the quality supports and services that children born in Ireland in 2020 will need to give them a positive start in life. Ireland is at a time of change. People are questioning our values as a society, and are asking what our priorities should be in the decade ahead. In our report we argue that young children must be a priority. They are the future of our society, and their well-being matters right now. Early childhood is a critical period in life, and high quality care and education in early childhood is essential if we are to give young children strong foundations. The report marks the end of the first phase of our Children 2020 project, which aimed to develop policy recommendations for Ireland, on the basis of national and international research evidence and in consultation with stakeholders here in Ireland. We are very grateful to all those who contributed to the consultation process in any way - we found a huge commitment to giving young children the best possible start in life, and we heard a wide range of proposals for reform. In the consultation process, we were struck by how much agreement there was on a vision for the future and on the key actions to achieve this vision. Five key principles underpin the vision that emerged from the consultation process, and these five key principles form the basis for our recommendations: - Children come first. All children have rights. Children's well-being and development should be the driving force in policies on early care and education.
- High quality. The quality of young children's experiences in all settings - both in the home and in services outside the home - is critical to their well-being and development. The Government must prioritise quality in services and supports for young children and their families.
- All young children. All children matter. High quality services and supports should be universal - provided for all children, affordable and accessible - with additional supports for those who need them.
- All families. Families are central in young children's lives. A wide range of mainstream supports should be readily available to all families.
- Linked services. Promoting children's well-being and development requires well-coordinated services and supports for young children and their families.
Read the short summary report here. The full report is available here. You can also view the presentations given at our launch event here. Back to the top
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Start Strong's Pre-Budget Submission
Given the current economic crisis, the immediate priority for children's early care and education in Ireland must be to preserve the current level of expenditure on services and supports for young children and their families. The progress that has been made in the last decade must not be lost. There is a particular focus in our Pre-Budget Submission on the need to maintain the Free Pre-School Year, which was a major step forward in the development of early care and education in Ireland. The principle of universal, free provision is extremely important as all children benefit from quality care and education, and the benefits are large. The scheme already has a very high participation rate of 94%, showing that parents recognise the value of affordable and accessible care and education services for their children. But affordability and accessibility are only part of the story - high quality in services for young children is critical if those services are to bring the benefits to children, to the economy and to society that we know are possible. In relation to the upcoming Budget, at the very least the Government must maintain existing supports for the implementation of Síolta and Aistear and the higher capitation grant for services with pre-school leaders qualified to bachelor's degree level. There is also scope for a stronger link between public funding for early care and education services and a sufficient level of compliance with statutory requirements, including the pre-school regulations. In the longer term, of course, the raising of quality standards will require a more comprehensive set of supports for services, including a detailed plan for the full implementation of the Siolta national quality framework and the Aistear curriculum framework, as well as an ambitious plan for the professionalisation of the early care and education workforce. Our longer-term recommendations appear in our vision report, Children 2020: Planning Now, for the Future. Read our Pre-Budget Submission here. Back to the top
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Policy focus: Northern Ireland
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Consultation on draft Early Years Strategy
Earlier this year, the Northern Ireland Executive published a draft Early Years (0-6) Strategy. and the consultation process on the draft strategy draws to a close on 30th November. While stakeholders in Northern Ireland have responded to the detail of the draft Strategy in a variety of ways, there is one clear lesson for policy-makers in the Republic of Ireland: even in a time of recession, it is possible to engage in a process of long-term planning on services and supports for young children and their families. The draft Strategy identifies 'four key priority areas': - Improve the quality of provision in order to promote better outcomes for children (including the development of a quality framework for evaluation of early years provision, and a review of the pre-school curriculum).
- Respect the role of parents and carers and strengthen engagement with families (including a programme to raise awareness among parents of child development milestones and of the value of play in learning, and expanding the reach of the Sure Start programme).
- Improve equity of access to services (including: raising the minimum level of qualifications in all funded settings to NVQ level 3 [FETAC 5], and NVQ level 4 [FETAC 6] for leaders-in-charge; introducing an 'early years leadership programme'; expanding provision for 2-year olds; changing funding mechanisms to address differences between statutory and non-statutory provision; and requiring and supporting all voluntary and private providers to work within a revised framework for addressing Special Educational Needs).
- Promote greater integration in service delivery.
The draft Strategy and related documents are available here. Back to the top |
Policy focus: international
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UNESCO report on Europe and North America
As background for the recent UNESCO 'World Conference on Early Childhood Care and Education', UNESCO has published a regional report on early childhood services in Europe and North America The report compares early childhood care and education across 52 countries in Europe and North America. It includes a large selection of data tables that allow comparisons across countries, as well as providing reflective assessments of the data. The report concludes that there are both positives and negatives in recent international trends. On the positive side, the report strongly welcomes increasing efforts by Governments (and particularly the European Commission) to enhance policies in the early childhood field; and also welcomes a growing attention to the widening of access to early childhood services to children with disabilities and from excluded populations. On the critical side, the report notes worries in relation to the growth of inequality and child poverty across the region, the persistence of a labour market appoach to children under 3 years old (rather than seeing the educational potential of services for children under 3), and a democratic deficit in the organisation of early childhood services. The report highlights the on-going inspiration provided by early childhood services in the Nordic countries, where early childhood services are viewed as a universal entitlement and a child's right, where groups are conducted by a graduate early childhood professional with a trained child assistant, where early childhood services - and the staff working in them - are valued within society, and where services are integrated across the age-range, with no split between 'care' services for children under 3 and early education for children over 3. However, the report shows that it is not just in comparison with Nordic countries that the care and education of young children in Ireland falls short. The report notes explicitly, for example, that Slovenia has a 'far more comprehensive network of early childhood services' than Ireland, in spite of having a GDP per capita that is less than half that of Ireland. The report shows that public funding for early childhood services in Ireland is at the low end of the European spectrum, with a particularly low level of public funding in Ireland for services for children under 3 years old. Read the UNESCO report here. Back to the top |
Why business should support early childhood education
The US Chamber of Commerce has recently launched two publications that pull together the findings of research on the impact of quality early childhood education. The US Chamber of Commerce argues that the research evidence makes a compelling case for the business sector to support the development of early childhood care and education. The report is written with a US focus but is equally relevant to the business community in Ireland. The US Chamber of Commerce argues that quality care and education for young children is an investment that will make the workforce of the future more competitive. It concludes that 'The research is clear: high-quality early childhood programs can have a significant short- and long-term impact on children's lifelong success and on our economy'. The publications' audience is not just Government, but business leaders too. The reports argue that business leaders need to actively support early learning as part of their policy agenda, on the grounds that 'Business has a clear economic stake in the future of our nation's children and should be an active partner in promoting policies that help young children succeed.' In clear, economic language, the reports draw on the research of the Nobel prize-winning economist Professor James Heckman (showing why the return on investment in human capital is highest in children's early years), cost-benefit analyses of quality early childhood programmes (showing returns of between 2.5 and 17 times the level of investment), as well as the findings of brain research (that show that a child's first 5 years are the most critical in the development of the human brain) and research on educational disadvantage (which shows that achievement gaps begin well before children begin kindergarten). The report makes clear that there is a robust economic rationale for Government investment in high quality care and education for young children. Start Strong believes the business case is just one among many arguments for quality early care and education. Other arguments matter too. In particular, we believe that young children should not be viewed solely as contributions to future economic growth - their well-being matters right now and that is sufficient justification in itself for high quality care and education. But we also believe that the strength of the case for quality care and education lies in the fact that different people can approach the issue from many different perspectives and all reach the same conclusion. As the US Chamber of Commerce argues, 'Every sector of society has a stake in the future of children and should be active partners in their success'. Whether we argue in terms of children's rights, gender equality, child poverty or business competitiveness, the conclusion is the same: high quality care and education for young children must be a priority. Read the full report ( Why Business Should Support Early Childhood Education) or read the short briefing note ( Starting Smart and Finishing Strong). Back to the top
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End Child Poverty Coalition - pre-budget submission
The End Child Poverty Coalition recently published its Pre-Budget submission, arguing that children are not responsible for the economic crisis and should not be forced to suffer as a consequence. The End Child Poverty Coalition is a coalition of eight non-governmental organisations including Start Strong. The other members of the Coalition are Barnardos, the Children's Rights Alliance, Focus Ireland, OPEN (the One Parent Exchange Network), Pavee Point, the National Youth Council of Ireland and the Society of St Vincent de Paul. The Pre-Budget Submission addressed five key areas of public policy that impact on child poverty: social welfare, early childhood education and care, educational disadvantage, health and housing. In relation to young children, the End Child Poverty Coalition urged the Government to ensure that there are no further cuts to budgets for early care and education, so that the progress made in recent years is not lost. The Coalition recommended the Government to continue the policy of no 'top-ups' in the Free Pre-School Year, to ensure the scheme remains free to parents. The Coalition also urged the Government to continue pushing for higher quality standards in services for young children through implementation of Siolta and Aistear and through continuing to incentivise qualifications above FETAC level 5. In relation to income supports for families, the Coalition called for the Government to maintain the current rate of Child Benefit for 2011. Read the End Child Poverty Coalition's Pre-Budget Submission here. Back to the top
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