Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 17 November 2009
190 Deputy Ruairí Quinn asked the Minister for Health and Children the position regarding the provision of the early childhood care and education scheme; the number of services that have joined the scheme; the number of children eligible to participate; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [41342/09]
Amharc ar fhreagraAs the Deputy will be aware, I have responsibility for the implementation of the free Preschool Year in Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) scheme which is being introduced in January 2010. The scheme is open to all commercial and community pre-schools and creche facilities, which are notified to the Health Service Executive (HSE) or registered with the Irish Montessori Educational Board (IMEB). Children will be eligible to avail of the preschool year where they are aged more than 3 years 2 months and less than 4 years 7 months on 1 September each year.
A key requirement of the scheme is that pre-school leaders must hold a certificate for a major award in child care/early education at a minimum of Level 5 on the National Framework of Qualifications of Ireland (NFQ) or an equivalent recognised qualification in the child care/early education field. In the first two full years of the scheme, the qualification requirement will be met where a person holds an award in ECCE that includes the four core modules of Early Education, Child Development, Caring for Children and Work Experience and has at least two years of working in a position of responsibility with children aged from birth to 6 years.
It is a condition of the preschool year that services which wish to participate will be required to provide an appropriate educational programme for children which adheres to the principles of Síolta, the National Quality Framework for Early Childhood Education. Síolta is a quality assurance process which addresses all aspects of practice in early childhood care and education services. It is designed to support practitioners to develop high quality services for children aged from birth to six years.
An annual capitation fee of over €2,450 will be paid to participating services in return for the provision of a free preschool year to each child. Payments will be made to services at the beginning of each term. A higher capitation rate of €2,850 per annum will be paid to sessional playschool services where all child care workers have qualification levels above the minimum requirements for the scheme. To qualify for the higher capitation rate all Preschool leaders in the service must hold a level 7 or 8 qualification relating to child care and have 3 years experience working in the sector, and all assistants must hold a relevant level 5 qualification.
It is a fundamental principle of the scheme that it is available to parents free of charge. Services may, however, charge parents for additional services provided these are clearly optional to parents and provided appropriate programme based activities continue to be provided to children not availing of such services during the preschool year hours. Services participating in the scheme should be satisfied that they will be in a position to meet all of their costs from the capitation provided and additional funding will not be provided where this is not the case.
Services can provide the preschool year from a range of options. A full or part-time day care service will normally provide the place for 2 hours 15 minutes a day, five days a week over 50 weeks. A playschool sessional service will normally be required to provide a pre-school service for 3 hours a day, five days a week over 38 weeks. However, where for good reason a sessional service is unable to operate over 5 days, it may participate in the scheme by providing a place for 3 hours 30 minutes a day, 4 days a week over 41 weeks.
Further flexibility is provided for in that, a full or part-time service may choose to provide a sessional service over 38 weeks of a year (or 2 sessional services each day) while a sessional service may choose to provide 2 hours 15 minutes per day over 50 weeks. Also in cases where children attend a full or part-time day care service for 3 days a week only, consideration will be given to allowing the service to participate in the scheme on the basis of providing the pre-school year to those children for 3 hours 45 minutes a day for 3 days a week. In such cases, a service will be required to provide the preschool year over 50 weeks.
Applications by approximately 4,200 child care services to enter the new scheme indicate a capacity of 98,000 preschool year places. It is hoped that some 63,000 children will avail of the scheme in January 2010. Contracts are currently issuing to all services which meet the criteria of the scheme and a list of services approved to participate in the scheme will be available shortly from the City and County Child care Committees (CCCs). Based on the applications to date, I am confident that the total number of places available in preschool services applying to enter the scheme will meet the number of places required.
