|
|
|
|
Government abolishes the Centre for Early Childhood Development and Education
The Government notified the Board and Executive of the Centre for Early Childhood Development and Education (CECDE) on Friday, September 19th that funding for the organisation will cease by the end of November this year.
The CECDE was established in 2002 by the Department of Education and Science and is managed jointly by the Dublin Institute of Technology and St. Patrick's College, Drumcondra. The aim of the CECDE is to develop and co-ordinate early childhood education. The Centre's brief covers children from 0 to 6 years of age in a wide variety of settings, including families, nurseries, crèches, playgroups, child minders, preschools and the infant classes of primary schools.
The Centre developed Síolta, the National Quality Framework for Early Childhood Education in Ireland which was launched by the then Minister for Children, Brian Lenihan on May 30th 2006. The CECDE has since introduced and disseminated the framework to large numbers of teachers and practitioners in the early years sector and is embarking presently on the implementation of Síolta in over 100 services.
The National Quality Framework has been welcomed with great enthusiasm and acclaim both in Ireland and abroad as a tool which has the potential to transform the provision of early childhood education in Ireland to the benefit of our youngest and most vulnerable children.
Other areas of activity include the administration of a €2,000,000 quality improvement grant for over 200 pre-schools in our most disadvantaged areas, the development of the national childcare training strategy as well as research and development activities.
The CECDE has played a vital role in the development and implementation of the national policy approach to early childhood learning. There are major commitments for the expansion of early childhood education as indicated in recent policy reports including the National Action Plan for Social Inclusion 2007 – 2016, the National Development Plan and Towards 2016. The programme for Government includes, for example, the commitment of ensuring that every child has access to a pre-school place by 2012. The need for the continuing active engagement of the Department of Education and Science in early childhood education has also been stressed in a recent report of the National Economic and Social Council on the Irish Economy.
All social partners in Ireland support the investment in and development of early childhood education. Internationally, many advisory bodies such as the World Bank, UNICEF and the OECD recommend increased attention to pre-school education and as a measure to support individual children and families and also as an effective intervention to boost economic competitiveness as a society. Early childhood education is an area where Government investment has been relatively modest and it would clearly take substantial further investment to meet the commitments referred to above.
The closure of the CECDE will mean a significant loss of expertise and capacity to this important area of policy development and implementation and signals a disengagement from Government commitments to the early childhood sector and to commitments under educational disadvantage. The CECDE consider it vital that the work of the Centre continues and that Government should continue to invest in high quality provision within Early Childhood services.
The Board of the Centre for Early Childhood Development and Education
Contact: Dr. Elizabeth Dunphy, Chair, St. Patrick’s College Drumcondra
|
|
|
