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Early Education in the UK |
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England:
Historically, the UK has had the least developed child care system in Europe. Like the U.S. it has a sizable minority who distrust their government. Care for children was left to individual families, but this put undue pressure on many mothers as they needed to enter the labour market to support their families.
In 1998 the New Labour Government under Tony Blair announced the first ever National Childcare Strategy. There would be 2.5 hours a day of free early education for all three and four year-olds. Now, 99% of three and four year olds receive some type of free early education. Working parents needed to find "wraparound care" to supplement the free early education. Working class parents working more than 16.5 hours per week qualified for a working family tax credit that could be used to pay for this care.
The motivation for this dramatic change in child care policy is twofold: First, providing affordable care—targeted especially towards the working class and single mothers—helped the government increase employment. Second, research has shown that education in the early years has a dramatic impact on later educational attainment, so providing early education for all promotes equality of opportunity and improved education for the UK as a whole.
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France:
France has a system of free public early education for all children starting at age three. This system is voluntary but almost 100% of children enroll, even if their parents don't work. This is because early education is considered just as vital to child development as primary school education.
Schools are open from 8:30AM-4:30PM with extended care provided before and after school for a modest cost. This enables parents to work a full day without worrying about finding multiple care providers for their children.
Early education in France uses a nationalized curriculum and all teachers must have masters degrees. Costs for early education are financed entirely by taxes.
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http://zfacts.com/p/726.html | 01/18/12 07:30 GMT
Modified: Mon, 17 Apr 2006 05:43:57 GMT
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