Noel Rock (Dublin North West, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

61. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs her plans to impose additional requirements on the programmes that receive ECCE funding to ensure that the programmes are of a high and consistent quality in view of the fact that the ECCE scheme funds such a variety of preschool programmes, from Montessori schools to crèches and quality can vary between programmes; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [15025/17]

Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I would like to inform the Deputy that important steps have been taken to enhance the quality of childcare provision including through the ECCE programme. On 4th May 2016, the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs signed new Childcare Regulations, which came into effect on a phased basis from 30th June 2016. Some of the main changes in the new Regulations are as follows:

Registration– Services must be registered with Tusla (The Child and Family Agency) before being permitted to operate. Before deciding on registration, Tusla will carry out a pre-registration visit to ensure that the premises are fit for purpose.

Qualifications- All staff members working directly with children in pre-school services must hold at least a major award in early childhood care and education at level 5 on the National Framework of Qualifications (NFQ), or a qualification deemed by the Minister to be equivalent. It is also a requirement of the ECCE Grant Funding Agreement that all pre-school services participating in the ECCE programme must hold a level 6 qualification.

Management - All pre-school services must demonstrate that they have a clear management structure in place, and that each member of staff is aware of her or his specific role and responsibilities. All staff must be appropriately supervised and provided with training. As well as ensuring that all staff have been Garda vetted, the service provider must ensure that robust human resources procedures are in place for the recruitment of staff, including the seeking and careful scrutiny of references.

In addition, funding continues to be provided for quality initiatives in the early years sector. These include:

Approximately €1m has been provided to the Early Years Inspectorate of Tusla over the last 2 years to increase the number of inspections. My Department has funded the Early Years Inspectorate in the Department of Education and Skills to carry out education-focused inspections on pre-school services delivering the ECCE programme. This is to ensure a greater focus on the quality of the educational provision of the programme, and to identify poor practice or areas requiring improvement.

The Better Start National Quality Support Service funded by my Department, employs early childhood specialists to work directly with pre-school services to support quality improvement.The Learner Fund was introduced in 2013, and since then has provided financial assistance to thousands of Early Years practitioners in upskilling. Recently, my Department issued bursaries to Early Years practitioners who had upskilled to NFQ Level 7/8/9 in Early Childhood Care and Education. The next iteration of the Learner Fund is under design and details will be released later in 2017.

Roll-out of Síolta and Aistear - €0.5m per annum has been provided for the national quality and curriculum frameworks.