High quality

Quality is critical, both in services for young children and in supports for families. Where services and supports are of high quality, the benefits to children are significant. Where they are of poor quality, children can suffer.

In the Síolta national quality framework and the Aistear curriculum framework, we have two documents that set out a great deal of our vision. The challenge is to fully implement them. In our vision, public funds would only go to services that meet quality standards.

Professionalisation of the workforce is central to the achievement of high quality. Young children need services that are staffed by skilled, motivated and well-qualified practitioners. Caring is not a valued role in society, and childcare is seen as unskilled work which is usually low-paid. Our vision is that early years practitioners should be recognised as professionals, should have the training, status and development opportunities of professionals, and should be part of a profession with a much greater balance of men and women at all levels.

Immediate actions for the Government:

• Ensure public funding for early care and education services is linked to a sufficient level of compliance with all statutory requirements, including (where relevant) the Childcare (Pre-School Services) (No.2) Regulations, 2006.
• Fulfil the commitment already made to make all inspection reports publicly available, by publishing them on the internet.
• Introduce compulsory notification to the HSE for all paid childminders, bringing them within the scope of the statutory inspection process.
• Introduce regulations for after-school services.

In planning for the future, we urge the Government to make commitments to:

• Build on the excellent frameworks provided by Síolta and Aistear by developing a detailed plan for their full implementation.
• Achieve substantial progress towards a fully professional workforce in services for young children, with ambitious targets for the proportion of staff qualified to tertiary level, with plans to ensure that all paid childminders have appropriate qualifications, and with plans to provide relevant early years training to inspectors, to those in advisory roles and to staff in training institutions.
• Amend the Childcare (Pre-School Services) Regulations to require all early care and education services to have –or have access to– outdoor play areas.