ECE incentive program not enough
Cowichan Valley Citizen
January 9, 2008
By: Sarah Simpson
Citizen Staff

Local early childhood education stakeholders are happy for the acknowledgement but say the new incentive programs issued by the provincial government in late December are just not good enough.

On Dec. 21 Minister of State for Child Care Linda Reid announced a student loan assistance program for new early childhood educators and an incentive program for trained early childhood educators that choose to return to the child-care sector.

According to the press release, "the two new programs are part of B.C.'s ongoing commitment to address a shortage of early childhood educators and improve access to quality child-care spaces for families."…

But … the same flaws in the program as did Candace Spilsbury, the chair of Social Planning Cowichan.

"I find this incentive to be quite awkward because it's requiring people to have a student loan, so they'd have to go through that process and it seems that it's trying to support people who have already completed or are in the middle of completing training but doesn't necessarily support new people to enter the field," said Spilsbury. "I find it quite lacking in comprehensive strategy to address the issue."

The Province also introduced the Early Childhood Educator Incentive Grants Program…. The incentive program will only be available to the first 100 eligible applicants meaning support for just a few.

Local stakeholders believe it's mostly superficial help.

"From my personal perspective this initiative does nothing to support any early childhood educators who had to leave the field due to abysmal wages and cannot afford to work in their area of expertise," said Lise, who noted the average wage across the province is $12 per hour with no benefits.

"Yes, this is a positive beginning but will truly only support very few," she added. "But our early child care system is severely compromised and is on the brink of collapsing around the province -- I think wage equity would affect more, do more and the field of early childhood education would be revitalized."

Equally unsure about the proposed benefits of the announcement is child care advocate and coordinator of Growing Together Child Care centre, Mary Dolan.

"What about people who have stayed in the field for many years... and struggled with the insecurities for the sake of strengthening families and educating young children? Those that didn't leave?" Dolan wondered. "What are we offering the people that come back long term and what have we been doing to people who have been struggling to stay in the field and offer quality programs in their communities? We'd love to know where this money is coming from. Is it part of the money that was taken away from the child care operating funding program and been given back another way?"

Dolan said giving small amounts of money on the one hand, while taking away operating funds on the other hand is not going to entice early childhood educators to stay in the field and it's not going to entice young people to enter the field and make early childhood education their career.

"We need the B.C government as well as the federal government to come up with a long-term plan which includes universal child care and early learning systems so that all families will be able to afford it and its staff will be adequately paid for the work they do," said Dolan.