NEWS RELEASE   
For Immediate Release
2008EDU0093-001123
July 18, 2008

Ministry of Education

EARLY CHILDHOOD LEARNING CONSULTATIONS EXTENDED

VICTORIA – The Early Childhood Learning Agency is extending its
consultation deadline on the feasibility of full-day kindergarten for
five-year-olds and optional full-day pre-kindergarten for
three-and-four-year-old children, Education Minister Shirley Bond said
today.

"There have been more than 1,300 responses to the Early Childhood
Learning Agency’s request for input on full-day kindergarten and
pre-kindergarten, and I would like to thank the many individuals and
groups who submitted their responses by the initial deadline," said
Bond. "Due to this terrific response, the consultation deadline is being
extended by one month, to Aug. 15, so that additional responses may be
considered."

The Early Childhood Learning Agency has been tasked with exploring the
feasibility of expanding early-learning programs in British Columbia for
full-day kindergarten for five-year-olds and optional full-day
pre-kindergarten for three-and-four-year-olds. It will report back to
government on its findings by the end of 2008.

"Many families have told us they want more options and choice for their
children and this is about exploring those options," said Bond. "The
agency continues to gather views and opinions from a wide range of
groups and individuals to help ensure the government’s actions are
aligned with the needs and priorities that British Columbians have for
their children."

The agency has prepared a consultation paper as part of the process of
stimulating dialogue. To view the consultation paper and submit your
input, please go to http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/ecla/. Responses received
by Aug. 15, 2008 will be included in the consultation report.

The Early Childhood Learning Agency has been created within the Ministry
of Education, in collaboration with the Ministry of Children and Family
Development.

Since 2001, government has invested more than $137 million in new
literacy initiatives, including pre-literacy and early-learning programs
such as StrongStart BC. The Province has committed $38 million to fulfil
a 2008 throne speech commitment to expand the StrongStart BC program to
400 centres by 2010.
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Currently in PEI, the government are working on moving Kindergarten into the school system by September 2010.  In the interim, however, there continues to be much debate about the existing Kindergarten funding policy which causes some families to have to pay for Kindergarten for their children.  April Ennis has written an excellent post on this issue.

April is right, it certainly would appear that this policy is not written in favour of choice and quality options for children and families.  If it was, the Ennis family would not be in the position of having to pay for their child’s Kindergarten program next year.

From April’s posting:

You may wonder why I am fighting this policy, given that in 2-3 years public kindergarten is scheduled to enter the school system. The key reason is that both of my children will be attending kindergarten within the next 3 years.  Given this, they will hit the publicly funded system prior to the changes taking place.  In addition, there are many other children right across Prince Edward Island that are currently being impacted by this funding policy. The present and short term future still matters to the families who choose to enroll their child(ren) in a kindergarten program of their choice versus the school zone that they live in. There are many factors that parents consider when choosing a child care program for their child(ren). Some of these include the quality of program, availability of space, positive/negative relationship with the parents, work location of parents, reputation of centre and staff, parent testimonials, etc to name a few. Parents should be entitled to their “CHOICE” of “QUALITY” kindergarten programs.

What you may not realize is that, when the Department quietly implemented the new policy in August 2006, they limited Island parents’ choice of access to quality kindergarten programs. They also created a “clique” by protecting current kindergarten programs from any new competition. This policy change is protecting all publicly funded kindergarten programs from any new competition, including kindergarten programs who may not be providing a quality kindergarten program. Just because a standard curriculum is followed by all kindergarten programs, doesn’t guarantee that the program is delivered in a high quality manner.   The simple fact is that there are great variations in the level of quality child care and Kindergarten programs across PEI, yet the Department seems to be more concerned about protecting existing funded spaces than it does about the quality of those spaces.

Let’s shine some light on the second criteria in the policy:

         b) that public funding be conditional upon a minimum of 10 children being registered in the program.

Don’t get me wrong, I totally believe that Government needs to be accountable for public funding, but come on…..from the outside it certainly appears that they are protecting the existing community based funded kindergarten programs. This system seems to be set up to meet more of the needs of the funded operators and less of the needs of Island families. There is something very wrong with a system that is not balanced in favour of children and families.  I question this policy for the important fact that any program that existed before the policy change only needs 6 children enrolled in order to receive funding, but any new programs must have 10 children enrolled. Where is the equality here?  I could understand if the Government had only implemented this 6 vs 10 number of enrolment during the first year of transition, but to continue to allow new programs to be at a disadvantage merely because they are new is absolutely unfair. While I acknowledge that it hurts those programs who are trying to add quality options to communities the truth is that who it really hurts are the many children and families who forced to pay for the kindergarten programs that best meet the needs of their family. Here’s a novel idea….why not let the funding follow the child?  This would create a system in favour of children rather than operators! 

Funny, I thought that there was O tolerance for bullying on PEI. Maybe the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development should go back to kindergarten and learn the basics again. Of course the only problem is that they might have to pay to get into the quality program of their choice; as publicly funded kindergarten is not truly accessible to all on PEI.