Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 22 September 2011
234 Deputy Terence Flanagan asked the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the position regarding the continuation of the preschool year (details supplied); and if she will make a statement on the matter. [25357/11]
Amharc ar fhreagraThe Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) programme was introduced in January 2010 and provides a free preschool year to all eligible children in the year before commencing primary school. Almost every preschool service in the State is participating in the programme ensuring that it is available to children in all areas, and 63,000 children, or 94% of the eligible age cohort, availed of the programme in the 2010/11 preschool year. In 2011, the ECCE programme is expected to cost €166 million.
Services participating in the ECCE programme are required to provide age-appropriate activities and programmes to children within the Síolta framework for early learning. They are also encouraged to implement the Aistear curriculum which has been developed for children aged from birth to 6 years. The ECCE programme is universally available, free of charge, to all preschool children and I believe this is critical to ensuring equality of access and school readiness.
While I understand that some parents may have concerns about the future provision of the ECCE programme, given the current economic difficulties, I would like to assure you of the Government's ongoing commitment to early childhood care and education.
Preschool services currently participating in the programme have a legal contractual agreement up to the end of August 2012 and planning is already underway for the September 2012/August 2014 period of the programme. Having said this, you will appreciate that all programme funding is considered in the context of the annual estimates and budgetary process and it is not possible to give a specific guarantee in advance of these discussions.
Clearly resources are scarce. However, my objective is to incrementally develop the ECCE programme over the term of this Government. A key element of this will be to support implementation of the Workforce Development Plan, by the Early Education Policy Unit of the Department of Education and Skills, which is co-located within my Department. The Workforce Development Plan provides a framework for ensuring that personnel working in the ECCE sector have access to accredited training, enabling quality and standards in ECCE services to be continuously improved.
From May of this year, my Department has been working with two major voluntary child care organisations to provide subsidised on-line accredited training courses to staff working within ECCE services. I hope to continue this initiative in 2012, by supporting training modules which have a specific focus on educating children with special needs and children with literacy and numeracy difficulties. In addition, I will be collaborating closely with my colleague, the Minister for Education and Skills, in implementing the Literacy and Numeracy Strategy. Early intervention is crucial and the Strategy provides for a range of actions to support preschool children and their families, to be undertaken by my Department.
The current arrangements within the Health Service Executive (HSE) for the provision of support services to preschool children with special needs is being examined by the Office of Disability and Mental Health in the Department of Health, and my Department will continue to liaise with that Office. In addition, I have asked officials in my Department to examine various options for additional provision or improvements to the ECCE programme, in particular for marginalised groups, including children with special needs.
