The system has several elements and many problems. Making it fit for purpose will take a lot of work and even more resources than those that have just been announced.
Ontario’s child care policy now creates a universal, flat-fee child care for medium and high-income families
but doesn’t guarantee subsidies to low-income families.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang
Marilyn Campbell, Queensland University of Technology et Yan Qi, Queensland University of Technology
This week’s announcements will add to the need to train more early childhood workers and to ensure they are more diverse in a way that better reflects our multicultural society.
Through a loving connection, children learn what it means to take safe risks.
(Pexels/Anna Shvets)
A study of students across Canada between 2004 and 2015 provides an estimate of anxiety symptoms in kindergarteners, and can serve as a baseline for comparing children’s anxiety after COVID-19.
Kindergarten teachers were tasked with adapting a hands-on, play-based curricula in a virtual environment – a nearly impossible task even without parenting one’s own children at the same time.
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Kindergarten educators who taught from home during COVID-19 and who were primarily responsible for their own children self-reported poorer mental health than those without these responsibilities.
One project with the Art Gallery of Western Australia, researchers and children saw children respond to a painting by Wangkatjunga/Walmajarri artist Ngarralja Tommy May.
(Mindy Blaise and Jo Pollitt)
Researchers and educators with the Climate Action Childhood network are generating responses to climate change alongside young children.
Almost as many trained early childhood educators work outside licensed child care as in it. Many say they would return to the field if offered decent work.
(Allison Shelley/The Verbatim Agency for EDUimages)
Staff recruitment and retention challenges aren’t seen in public child-care centres, where educators are paid substantially more, are unionized and have professional development opportunities.
Ontario is creating far below the 200,000 to 300,000 early learning and care spaces needed to address the demand that will arise as parent fees decline.
(Benson Low/Unsplash)
Among provinces, Ontario is the least generous supporter of its childhood educator workforce. Parents pay the price in available child-care spaces if a staffing recruitment crisis does not improve.
Finding a good path towards publicly funded early learning and care will require input from all stakeholders, including current providers and early childhood educators.
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A chasm has opened up between early childhood learning and the first years of compulsory schooling. Kids go from playing to being tested in the blink of an eye, and their learning is poorer for it.
Whatever costume you wear, put on your ‘sorting hat’ after trick-or-treating to help children lay the foundation for higher-level mathematics.
(Shutterstock)
The pandemic highlighted Australia’s reliance on early childhood educators, while adding to their existing stresses. A study of how educators fared identifies three key factors in their well-being.
A renewed model for oversight and support of all home child-care providers would ensure that our society’s youngest and most vulnerable people have access to safe and higher-quality home child care.
They’re among the lowest-paid in the country but are working many hours unpaid to meet the demands of accreditation. With 73% wanting to leave the profession in the next three years, change is needed.
‘Purposeful play’ could look like children gaining opportunities to develop fine motor skills and cognitive abilities through talking about their inquiry and pursuits.
(Shutterstock)
Communicating clearly with children and providing space for them to play will be vital during back-to-school and beyond as children manage stressors associated with COVID-19.
The Sept. 20 election call may place Canada’s long-awaited national child-care plan at risk.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick
We enter this election with eight signed child-care agreements and question marks over the fate of those deals if the Liberal’s gamble on a majority government fails.
Beyond the many known benefits of outdoor education, COVID-19 has highlighted the outdoors as an environment which mitigates the risk of spreading airborne viruses.
(Pexels/Charles Parker)
Planning outdoor early learning and child care has implications for training and recruiting educators as well as for planning, developing and funding physical spaces.
Adjunct Professor, Department of Applied Psychology and Human Development at Ontario Institute for the Study of Education (OISE) and Senior Policy Fellow at the Atkinson Centre, University of Toronto