early childhood education a priority

TORONTO - A new report suggests governments need to be spending more money on early childhood education.

But the TD Economics analysis also notes that since most governments are struggling to balance the books, that investment might not come for a while.

The report explores the benefits of the education kids get before starting school.

It concludes that every dollar invested can provide three times the returns, and the children aren't the only ones who benefit.

The report says early learning also helps the economy, because it allows parents to join the workforce after parental leave and before a child starts full-time school.

It also found Canada's government spending on education before primary school pales in comparison with other European and English-speaking countries.

And it's uneven across Canada, with spending lowest in Nunavut and highest in Quebec.

Altogether, provincial and territorial governments spent $7.5 billion on the sector in 2011, and the federal government spend $1.2 billion plus another $2.5 billion through tax credits.

TD economist Craig Alexander says while steps have been taken to improve the education system across the country, it's clear there is demand for more.

"The challenge is that governments are currently facing deficits and have made commitments to rebalance their finances," Alexander said.

"It's extraordinarily difficult to go to government today and ask them to launch large-scale new financial programs."

It would take between $3 billion and $4 billion just to bring Canada in line with the average of OECD countries when it comes to spending on early childhood education, he added.

"I don't think in the current environment, that is a reasonable ask."

But as government allocate resources going forward, Alexander said they should consider adding more to early childhood education spending, especially once their books are in order.

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Early childhood education survey

Early childhood education News, The New Zealand early childhood network, ChildForum, is conducting a national survey on young children’s care and education in New Zealand and the current state of the early childhood sector.

The survey is the only research independent of the Government and its Ministries of Education and Social Development and the financial and political interests of individual groups within the sector.

It canvasses the views of different providers of early childhood care and education and people from across the sector, says ChildForum’s chief executive Dr Sarah Farquhar.

"The survey provides an opportunity to indicate what is best for young children’s care and education and convey what is going well or not going well on the ground in the sector. "The survey results may even have an influence on future policy development."

Dr Farquhar says the turmoil the early childhood and care sector has faced over the last few years with reductions in funding for the employment of qualified teachers and other decisions such as increasing the proxy for class size allowing centre operators to have up to 150 children per licence, may be nothing compared to what may be seen soon.

The Government has so far set a path that is focused on numbers - on strategies to get more children in early childcare and on establishing control of the burgeoning costs of supply of this childcare and education - rather than on quality of experience for children and families, and being supportive of a well-functioning cohesive early childhood sector. Already as a result of the Government’s ECE Taskforce Group report we have seen the Te Kohanga Reo National Trust going to the Waitangi Tribunal and Playcentre people staging major protests to get some assurance on the safety of their funding. With several reviews of funding, standards, and the home-based sector either under way or recently completed many more changes for groups within the sector, and potential stress for teachers, families and children are in the wind. Last year’s survey, also conducted by ChildForum, revealed six key issues occupying the minds of people in the ECE sector and how they thought Government should respond.

The six issues were:

concerns about funding levels and reliability of funding

maintaining teacher morale (optimism and confidence) in the face of policy and funding changes

the financial affordability of early childcare and education for families

maintaining full rolls and child attendance

services and teaching adults being able to give children what they valued as a high standard of education, and

a high standard of care for children.

This year’s survey seeks to find out if anything has changed, identify what issues may be concerning the sector now, and what might be expected to improve or worsen.

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