News on Kindergarten BC
From the Throne Speech
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.
Your government pledged to use under-utilized school spaces as public spaces to deliver on public priorities.
Below are some questions that are already emerging (based on my discussions with child care operators, parents, educators, municipal reps etc…) regarding this announcement.
Will this new Early Childhood Learning Agency be part of MCFD, MOE or will it be independent? Who will be part of this new Agency?How does this announcement impact current child care capital grant applicants who may be accepted to receive funding? (As they must sign an agreement to provide care for multiple years, what will the impact of this be when 3, 4 and 5 year olds are eventually able to attend all day kindergarten?)Is the current funding provided under the child care operating funding program stable or will it now be redirected to pay for this new initiative?What impact will this announcement have on the existing child care operators? Will there be a process to integrate them into this new system or will they simply now be providers of after school care services for children three years of age and up?What will the educational requirements be for the staff working in the new all day kindergartens? Will ECE staff be qualified to work in all day kindergartens or will it be kindergarten teachers with a degree?Assuming this initiative is part of education, what will this mean for infant-toddler care in BC? How will the few spaces that there are be able to sustain themselves if the 3-5 care stream is removed from within child care?Will the full day kindergarten program be mandatory at certain age levels? If so, which levels…3 years, 4 years or 5 years?
These questions probably only scratch the surface regarding the issues related to the development of full day kindergarten in BC. There is still much more discussion to be had before anyone will be clear about what the impact of this announcement will be for families, children, schools and child care providers.
This will be another health care money-pit in 10 years. The government does not spend money efficiently we see it over and over again yet we again asking them to grow. Non-profit and private operators are generally efficient with money and offer a variety of settings to suit the needs of parents. This will be another institutional style learning environment with high pressure placed on kids to develop and get them into the school system. Kids need to play before they are forced into the outdated school system. kids will now be in the school system at 3. Too young. The system is fine now, the government just needs to be more creative with funding and increase funding directly to ECE workers instead of using the operators as “flow-thrus”. they also need to increase funding levels to make it affordable for operators to open and maintain centres. That is why we have such a shortage of spaces. Capital start up grants do nothing to address the ongoing operational costs and the CCOF levels are too low. That equates directly to parent fees. I am already subsidizing people who live unhealthy lifestyles with high taxes for health care, now I am going to subsidize people with children because they had them when they could not afford it. The governments job is to run the province not run businesses. They are effectively putting existing child care centres out of business by starting one themselves. They just have the authority to garnish your wages by way of increased taxes, but if they had to run the system like a business they would be dead meat.