Written answers

Wednesday, 2 November 2011

Department of Health

Preschool Services

8:00 pm

Photo of Dara MurphyDara Murphy (Cork North Central, Fine Gael)
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Question 456: To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs if there are changes to the free preschool year with regard to its budget allocation; her plans to develop further the education of preschool children; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [32022/11]

Photo of Frances FitzgeraldFrances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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The Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) programme was introduced in January 2010 and provides a free pre-school year to all eligible children in the year before commencing primary school. Almost every pre-school 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, are currently availing of the pre-school year.

A capitation payment is provided under the ECCE programme to participating services for each eligible child enrolled for the free pre-school year. The standard capitation rate is €2,450 per annum and a higher capitation rate of €2,850 per annum is payable to services with more qualified staff. There are no changes to the capitation rates, and in 2011 the ECCE programme is expected to cost in the region of €166 million.

Services participating in the ECCE programme are required to provide age-appropriate activities and programmes to children within the Siolta 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 pre-school children and I believe this is critical to ensuring equality of access and school readiness.

My objective is to incrementally develop the ECCE programme over the term of this Government as resources permit. 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 childcare 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 pre-school children and their families, to be undertaken by my Department.

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