I have responsibility for implementing the free Pre-School Year in Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) scheme, which was introduced in January of this year and which was participated in during January to August 2010 by more than 53,000 children. Services participating in the scheme are required to make an electronic return to my Office at the start of the preschool year. In September 2010, the return was required from services in the week ending 24 September and it should be noted that some of the recent data referred to below is still subject to final collation and verification.
From the returns made by participating services earlier this month, it appears that some 63,000 children are currently enrolled in the scheme, representing approximately 94% of children in the year prior to Junior Infants. Given that further children are availing of their preschool year through the Early Start programme, in special services for children with special needs, Traveller preschools and under the Community Childcare Subvention (CCS) scheme, it is estimated that some 97% of children are availing of a free preschool place. I am delighted with such a high level of participation in the scheme after such a short period, and I believe this vindicates the Government's decision to introduce the scheme as quickly as possible.
All services participating in the scheme are required to provide an age-appropriate educational programme regardless of whether they offer full day-care or sessional places. A range of educational approaches are offered in preschool services including the Montessori method, Highscope, Steiner-Waldorf and play-based. Whichever curricular method is followed, they are required to adhere to the principles of Síolta, the National Quality Framework for Early Childhood Education, and Aistear, the Early Childhood Curriculum Framework.
The number of preschool services participating in the scheme has also increased from approximately 3,800 in January 2010 to 4,200 this September. The number of places that will be available to the scheme in these services will vary as, in many services, it will be dependent on the level of demand for full day-care places. However, services indicated in their returns that they had a combined total of approximately 20,400 vacancies which could be filled by ECCE qualifying children. Of the 1,270 services offering full and part-time day-care, 5,500 ECCE vacancies are reported. The remaining 14,900 ECCE vacancies were reported in sessional services. These figures indicate that the total number of places currently being offered is in the region of 84,000 and that the average occupancy rate is in the region of 75%. The day-care services also reported a combined total capacity, at any time, of just under 60,000 places.
I do not believe that there is any credibility in the suggestion that parents are switching their children from full day-care to sessional services as a result of the ECCE scheme. Children availing of the scheme in day-care settings may do so either while availing of full day-care (where the capitation is used to reduce the child-care fees), or by attending a free sessional place in that service. Not alone do many children participating in the preschool year do so in day-care services, there are few if any parents for whom a 3-hour place in a sessional service will facilitate their participation in employment, education or training. In fact, the evidence is that for the owners of many childcare services, the recession has reduced demand for their full day-care services very significantly, and the ECCE scheme, which provides a steady stream of income which is non-dependent on the level of local employment, has been instrumental in saving their businesses.
In terms of the impact of the scheme on employment in the sector, the September return indicates that over 30,000 staff are working in participating services compared to some 23,000 staff when the scheme was introduced. Given the reduced demand for day-care, it would appear that the scheme has been very beneficial in maintaining and increasing employment in the sector and this is further supported by the fact that the number of services participating in the scheme has increased by ten per cent between January and September 2010.
