Early Learning BC
Speech from the Throne presented by Lieutenant-Governor at the Opening of the Fourth Session, Thirty-Eighth Parliament of the Province of British Columbia, February 12, 2008
KEY EXCERPTs from the Throne Speech:
- Immediate steps will continue to strengthen early childhood learning.
- Eighty-four StrongStart BC centres have opened to help preschool-age children and their parents get ready for kindergarten. Another 316 centres will be added in the next two years, for a total of 400 StrongStart centres that will be open across B.C. by 2010.
- A new Early Childhood Learning Agency will be established. It will assess the feasibility and costs of full school day kindergarten for five-year-olds. It will also undertake a feasibility study of providing parents with the choice of day-long kindergarten for four-year-olds by 2010, and for three-year-olds by 2012. That report will be completed and released within the year.
- Boards of Education will also be given a new opportunity to provide early learning programs to preschoolers.
- Up to 80 StrongStart Centres will open in under-utilized school spaces over the next year. They will help our youngest students to enter school ready to learn.
- Your government pledged to use under-utilized school spaces as public spaces to deliver on public priorities.
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