Free Pre-School Year

The Free Pre-School Year scheme is being introduced in January 2010. The scheme provides one year of pre-school for the year before school entry, with free provision of a 3-hour daily session for 38 weeks of the year, or 2-hours 15-minutes daily for 50 weeks.

Start Strong welcomed the Free Pre-School Year when it was first announced. Our Budget Analysis in April 2009 argued that the scheme has 5 important features:

• It recognises the importance of quality care and education for young children.
• It’s universal (subject to available places), which is important as all children benefit from quality care and education in their early years.
• It provides free hours, reducing costs to parents and promoting equality of opportunity.
• It directly supports early care and education services, ensuring funds are targeted.
• It is linked to quality standards, through Síolta and minimum qualifications for staff.

There are of course many challenges in implementation, to meet the varied needs of children, parents and providers.

Nevertheless, Start Strong believes the Free Pre-School Year is an important step in the right direction. As a next step, we believe the Government should prepare a national 10-year plan for early care and education.