The report, Early childhood education and care policy in the United Kingdom, is officially launched in Stockholm today (Thursday) at a conference on early childhood education and care policy organised by the Ministry of Education and Science in Sweden and the OECD. Completed last December, it takes an overview of early years policies in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The report recommends that central Government should consider approaches that have developed in other parts of the UK, including a later start to primary school. It notes that in Scotland, children do not begin school before the age of five and reception classes do not exist.
'The Scottish early years curriculum framework seems to reflect a less school-dominated agenda than the Early Learning Goals and focuses on key areas of children's development,' says the report. 'In Scotland, there has been strong public opposition to attainment testing, and parents have the right to withhold their children from testing.'
The report traces how early education has evolved over the past 200 years from New Lanark, near Edinburgh, where Robert Owen founded the country's first infant and nursery schools in 1816. It points out that it is expected that universal provision for three-year-olds will be achieved sooner in Scotland than in England - in 2002 rather than 2004 - and that each place consists of 4.5 hours of pre-school education over the school day, rather than 2.5 hours a day as in England. It also notes that there is no skew towards providing pre-school in areas of deprivation as there is in England and that staff:child ratios are a less problematic issue in Scotland than south of the border, since there are more generous staff ratios in local authority pre-school provision and no reception classes.
Labour's early years policies in its first four years of Government are weighed up and found wanting in some aspects. The OECD acknowledges that the Government has 'attempted to redress many years of neglect in the early childhood education and care field' and says that early childhood provision in the UK is 'now benefiting from significant funding and a radical reform of policy, co-ordination and planning'.
However, it warns, 'The agenda will require continued strong funding over the coming years if progress is to be maintained, and a stable, national early childhood education and care system established.'
The report calls for a comprehensive early childhood education and care policy for all children from birth to the age of five, instead of the Foundation Stage for three-to five-year-olds. It says the current approach 'reflects compartmentalised thinking toward the early years, seeing early education primarily as a preparation for school and later life, and childcare as a support to working parents'. It also recommends that all children under statutory school age be entitled to full-time childcare places, which would help children in families on low incomes.
The reports' authors also highlight the need for greater support for childcare partnerships and local authority managers of early childhood services. They say the burden of workload and documentation on partnerships needed to be addressed.
The report is available on the OECD website at www.oecd.org
