Full-time kindergarten could cause child-care crunch
Dawson Creek Daily News
September 22, 2008 
By: Tamara Cunningham

Day-care, child-care centres and preschools could lose staff if the province allows toddlers into kindergarten on a full-time basis, education experts say.

The Ministry of Education is looking into the possibility of allowing three-, four- and five-year-old children into full-time kindergarten as part of an early learning program.

Judy Clavier, chairwoman of School District 59 board of trustees, said she supports the intent of the initiative to teach young ones the ABCs of basic schooling, but she questions the cost of such a program on community childcare.

"The problem will be finding enough people with early childhood education degrees because teachers don't have those," said Clavier.

She said in the rush to recruit qualified educators, school districts could inadvertently draw staff away from day-care centres and contribute to a growing burden on community childcare services.

The Early Childhood Educators of B.C. said it's already noticing a problem with recruiting and retaining qualified educators in community programs, and expects the situation to worsen. It started when the Ministry of Education launched the StrongStart learning centres in 2007….Early childhood educators working with preschool-aged children were swept under the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) umbrella, and as a result received higher paycheques for part-time work at StrongStart than they did full-time at daycares.

Sheila Davidson, executive director of Early Childhood Educators of B.C., said daycares and preschools can't compete with CUPE wages. Ninety per cent of revenue for daycares and pre-schools is collected from parent's pockets.

"There are complex issues that I am not sure this government has thought out very carefully," Davidson said.

Despite possible wrinkles in the program, Davidson said she is glad the government has begun to explore the need for early childhood learning in B.C. The concept has been batted around the education community for 35 years, since it was realized critical and lifelong development occur between birth and age five.

"It never made sense before. We were wasting the first five years of education; the critical years that shaped the child," she said.

Clavier said the proposed early learning program could be a big boost to the learning experience of children in School District 59.

"What we are finding in some cases... is that kids are not ready for kindergarten. That means they have never held a pencil or a pair of scissors, don't recognize their own names and cannot recite the alphabet," she said.

The program will not only help children learn the basics, but it will encourage natural development and help teachers discover and work with learning disabilities early on….