Dr. Margaret Rogers:

I wish to highlight one model. I support the expansion of SUSI. To expand that to part-time study would seem to be a straightforward and practical thing to do. A potential way to start with that could be within certain cohorts of applicants. One model that has been used successfully in early years over a number of years, and my colleagues here will be familiar with it, is the qualification route, because regulation required that people be qualified. Learner funds have been used over a number of years, and within the workforce development plan there is a plan now to have part-time degree programmes that would be provided free of charge to existing staff. As was mentioned earlier, the staff working in early years are primarily women and are largely in low pay. This is an initiative to promote their career development, to improve the quality of early learning in care and to give them access to degree-level programmes to complete or enhance their qualifications. That is a model that could be transferred and replicated in other sectors and areas, if that initiative were taken by the Government in different areas.

The other fundamental request we would make with regard to funding for early learning and care is that we would reach the OECD recommended targets within the first five or certainly within the next ten years. We are probably somewhere between a third and 50% towards the full target, which is 7% of GDP. Countries that have excellent models of childcare would be well over 1% and up to 1.5% in some cases. However, we are not even at the halfway point to a good average, so that is certainly an area that needs considerable support across government to implement that. Alongside that there is the notion of multi-annual funding security so that the people coming into early learning and care and parents have security about the quality of care that is offered to children.