High quality childcare is the key to social mobility : Daycare Trust
Daycare Trust, the national childcare campaign, are welcoming new policy announcements for early years education and care in ‘New Opportunities’ White Paper including:
- Extending free childcare places for two-year olds, including £57m to extend the pilot scheme to 15% of the most disadvantaged two-year-olds nationally making 23,000 free places available each year, spread across every local authority in England. Once the child turns three, they will automatically be entitled to 15 hours of free care per week.
- Consider making it a requirement that all practitioners have a full and relevant qualification of at least Level 3 (equivalent to A-levels) by 2015.
- Promoting awareness and take-up of the free childcare entitlement for three- and four-year-olds and the family support services provided by Sure Start Children’s Centres to improve outcomes for children under five, particularly the most disadvantaged.
Daycare Trust joint chief executive Alison Garnham said:
“The Government is right to recognise that high quality early years education and care is the key to social mobility.
“Lower income families get a double dividend from high quality early years education and care. Firstly, they can balance their family and work life maximising their household income, and secondly their children will benefit from improved language development, social skills and behaviour when they start school.
“The announcement on improving staff qualifications in childcare settings is welcome; the next frontier for childcare is to drive up quality by developing a highly trained and motivated workforce. However, to achieve this, action is needed to tackle the poor pay and conditions suffered by the majority of childcare workers”.
