Move money into early-childhood education

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 21/03/2016 (3494 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In the midst of their panic to find a coveted neighbourhood daycare spot close to their local community school, parents with young children may want to pause for a moment to reflect on their needs this provincial election.

A newly published report by Higher Education Strategy Associates titled What We Ask of Parents: Unequal Expectations for Parental Contributions to Early-Childhood and Post-Secondary Education in Canada, may help get their attention.

Parents seeking full-time nursery and kindergarten options are typically younger and at the start of their careers, and therefore paid less than they likely will earn when their children graduate from high school. The question, then, is do why the later forms of non-compulsory education (post-secondary education) require less contributions from parents than earlier ones (early-childhood education)?

Parents with young children have less time and less income to save up the $7,291 per year required for an infant spot in Manitoba. In contrast, parents have 17 years to save for a university-bound child, are more established in their careers, need only $4,613 for annual tuition and — ironically — enjoy a richer system of subsidies from the provincial government.

To achieve a more equitable education system for all parents, the report suggests we should be asking the provincial government to transfer funding from the post-secondary education budget to enhance support for early-childhood education. This would be a good top-of-mind proposal should a politician appear at your doorstep while you are trying to make dinner and change a diaper.

Here is another one: don’t have the provincial government subject parents to even more departmental silos and a distant level of government; let school divisions create the connected early-childhood education system for parents. Demand school divisions assume that line of funding so parents have a true one-stop shop for an integrated early-childhood education system in Manitoba.

Start with all-day kindergarten.

Trustees with young children form a majority of the board of the Winnipeg School Division, and we understand the challenges of finding affordable, high-quality early-childhood education. Not only does all-day kindergarten close the gap for children from low socio-economic backgrounds, but it also assists parents with young children at risk to get work and eases the return to work for others. Time and again it has been demonstrated that interventions in early-childhood education should start soon (even sooner than kindergarten, many would argue) to really have a positive impact on higher-risk children. It is why our board of young parents has pressed the gas on rolling out all-day kindergarten.

In addition to all-day kindergarten, in the Winnipeg School Division we already have a number of early-childhood educators on staff to support the most vulnerable of the young families we serve. In schools such as Elmwood, Children of the Earth, Tec Voc and others, we provide infant and toddler care to assist young women in returning to their education after having babies.

Even more early-childhood educators work in our buildings serving a very lucky few parents who have secured the much-coveted, school-based daycare spot. We host a number of licensed daycares; we are also host numerous before- and after-school programs.

School divisions are already at the centre of delivering and supporting the provision of high-quality early-childhood education, and we do it very well. We are intimately connected to the needs of parents and their children and are a central part of much of community life. We are well-positioned to address the fragmentation of current early-childhood education initiatives and integrate into a system that works for parents, kids and all of us.

The Free Press editorial board recently noted all-day kindergarten by itself is not enough, and that is true: gains from all-day kindergarten eventually begin to erode in the face of poverty and inequity. However, in order to support parents, lift young families out of poverty and address a growing inequity in early years education in the province, we need to open up a dialogue on a system of early-childhood education in Manitoba that connects early childhood learning to school divisions.

This provincial election is a good time to start.

Sherri Rollins is a Winnipeg School Division trustee.