Dear colleague,
This issue of our e-newsletter includes summaries of a number of recent research projects. The evidence base for quality early education is already compelling, and it's getting stronger all the time.
The research shows clearly that high quality care and education for young children brings significant, long-term benefits, especially for children's educational attainment.
The strength of the research evidence begs the question - asked in a publication profiled in this newsletter - what's stopping us? Why haven't we yet built a national system of high quality, affordable early care and education for all young children in Ireland?
Part of the answer lies in political will. Fortunately, though, our new Minister for Children, Frances Fitzgerald, is showing real enthusiasm for children's early care and education. With her recent commitment to develop a National Early Years Strategy during 2012, we have an important window of opportunity in the year ahead to turn the research evidence into political reality. |
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Long-term educational benefits shown
 When we look for evidence on the long-term impact of early care and education, the Abecedarian study in the US is one of the most rigorous long-term studies. New findings are just out, following children who took part through to the age of 30. The research again confirms the long-term educational benefits of quality early care and education. Those who received the early years programme were more than 4 times more likely than the 'control group' to have achieved university degrees. Read more |
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Social mix works better
 New research has shown that young children do better in socially mixed settings. And the influence is wholly positive. In socially mixed settings, those with weaker language skills benefit, and there is no negative impact on those with stronger language skills. It's a research finding with important policy implications: there are real risks in targeted supports that cluster disadvantaged children together at pre-school level. Read more |
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"Scaling up" quality - what's stopping us?
 A recent publication from the Bernard van Leer Foundation opens with an important question. Noting that we already know a great deal about what quality means in early care and education, and noting that there are many models of high quality provision, it asks "What is preventing states from universalising quality services in early childhood?"
Drawing on lessons from both developed and developing countries, one of the publication's conclusions is the importance of political will. Read more |
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Community childcare squeezed
 While the Free Pre-School Year has been a financial lifeline, both private and community childcare services have been squeezed in the recession. For many community childcare services, the fall in income from parents has been compounded by cuts to public funding. Recently announced changes to the Community Employment (CE) scheme will now cause further difficulty for community childcare services. CE may not be the best way to support the professionalisation of the early years workforce, but the financial viability of community services is a serious concern. Read more |
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Comparing European education systems
 A new website has just been launched that allows comparison of early years education systems across Europe.
"Eurypedia" is an online European encyclopedia of national education systems, run by the Eurydice network of Education Ministries in 33 European countries. While the Wikipedia-style encyclopedia is broad in scope - encompassing the whole education system - it includes lots of useful resources on early childhood education systems. Read more
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Start StrongAdvancing children's early care and education in Ireland
  www.startstrong.ie+353-1-7910-100
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