Shane McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)

Although my own children have gone far beyond this stage, I know where the Senator is coming from. I will bring back the message to the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Deputy Fitzgerald, and will discuss it with her. Members must excuse my spectacles but they were the only pair I could find.

I will be taking this Adjournment matter on behalf of the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Deputy Frances Fitzgerald. The early childhood care and education, ECCE, programme, which provides one free preschool year to each eligible child, is implemented by the Department of Children and Youth Affairs. The decision to introduce this programme in 2010 was a major step forward and marked a very significant milestone in the provision of early childhood care and education in this country. The programme is open to all community and commercial child care providers and children aged between three years and two months and four years and seven months on 1 September each year can enrol in a participating child care service and avail of the preschool provision. Nearly all preschool services in the country are participating in the programme and approximately 65,000 children, which constitutes approximately 95% of the eligible cohort of children, are availing of the free preschool year.

When the programme was introduced in 2010, a number of transitional measures were included to make it more acceptable to the child care sector and to ensure that each eligible child had access to the programme. One of these measures related to the number of weeks over which the free preschool year could be provided. At that time, approximately 30% of children in the relevant age cohort were in full day care, which generally was provided over a 50-week period. In order to facilitate full day care services in the early years of the programme, services were permitted to choose between providing a 38-week or a 50-week model. Those services that chose the 50-week model were required to provide the free preschool provision for two and a quarter hours each day, five days each week over 50 weeks. However, it should be noted that the majority of children availed of the free preschool provision in sessional services for three hours a day, five days a week, over a 38-week period between September and June.

It was always intended, once the ECCE programme had bedded down, to introduce a standard 38-week model. This is the optimal model in terms of ensuring a high-quality early years experience for preschool children. The Síolta programme, which provides clear practice guidelines on all aspects of delivering high-quality early education and Aistear, the national curriculum framework for early childhood education, were developed to support this objective. The early childhood care and education programme is designed to be delivered across 38 weeks. The curriculum cannot be quality assured across a 50-week period when children spend less time each day availing of it. Consensus from research is that only high-quality early education experiences in preschool will make a sustained difference to children's lives. The focus of the Minister, Deputy Fitzgerald, therefore, is on introducing changes that will bring about an improvement in the quality of the early childhood care and education services provided in this country. We need to consolidate the preschool year by ensuring that it is a quality experience for young children. For this reason, from September 2012, all services participating in the early childhood care and education programme will be required to provide the programme on the basis of three hours per day, five days per week, over 38 weeks. The capitation fee payable by the Department of Children and Youth Affairs will not change, as the child will spend the same number of hours in the programme.

The success of the preschool year to date attests to the huge importance of investing in the early years sector. One of the aims, despite the current economic situation, is to ascertain how to move forward and further support and develop early years provision. The Minister, Deputy Fitzgerald, is pleased to have been able to maintain the preschool year as a universal and free programme for qualifying children. She is confident the new early years strategy currently being developed by her Department will provide a framework to enhance the early years experience of all children and establish a positive foundation for engagement with the school environment and beyond.