Learning early lessons; If an ambitious education plan gets the OK, four- and five-year-olds in British Columbia will be able to spend full days in kindergarten classrooms, starting next September
Times Colonist (Victoria)
September 28, 2008 
By: Katherine Dedyna

Five-year-old Kaitlyn Aylesworth loved kindergarten, but four mornings a week at Marigold elementary school weren't nearly enough.

Before that, Kaitlyn had attended a full-day preschool so half-days felt like a step back that she didn't want to take, says her mother, Mary Murrell. "I just think that by the time they're that age, they're so enthusiastic -- they love it."

Count Murrell among the supporters of an ambitious early-learning initiative under examination by B.C.'s Ministry of Education, with full-day kindergarten a possibility for September 2009. If the entire program gets the go-ahead, four-year-olds would be enrolled in full-time early learning by 2010 and three-year-olds by 2012.

Education Minister Shirley Bond is concerned that 25 per cent of B.C. kids who arrive at kindergarten are not developmentally ready to be there.

"Our investment in this program, should we decide to proceed, is to do two things: provide more choice [for parents] and two, to find a way to better support families and their children before they reach the K-to-12 system," she says.

Some provinces already offer full-day kindergarten and junior kindergarten for four-year-olds. The B.C. Teachers' Federation has advocated full days for five-year-olds for nearly two decades -- but not for early childhood education in public schools.

The Canadian Union of Public Employees in B.C. charges the province lags behind with early learning and better get with it.

As evidence of public interest, the B.C. Early Learning …. received more than 2,600 submissions.

The benefits of early learning are well-documented. It helps to level the playing field when some kids come to kindergarten more stimulated and ready to learn than others.

The ages between three and five are "critical stages of development, when the brain is highly receptive," the agency asserts in its consultation paper. "Early learning is vital to life-long success and provides a foundation on which to build individual, social and economic well-being."

Five years ago, the Human Early Learning Partnership (HELP) mapped out difficulties faced by some five-year-old kindergarten students in the capital region. The group correlated parents' incomes, education, and child care with teacher assessments of each child's emotional maturity, social competence, health and communication. It found a strong relationship between income levels and child development that were mitigated when library use was high.

One-quarter of children were not judged physically healthy or emotionally mature in some areas, while there were almost no children expressing those deficits in neighbouring areas.

…. Provided it's high quality programming for kindergarten and pre-kindergarten, B.C. is considering "what may be the most important social policy initiative in a generation," says Paul Kershaw, a public policy expert with HELP.

Children of lower-income families or neighbourhoods are more likely to be vulnerable than children of higher-income families. Extended programming would "help close that gap" between children who face a few challenges versus those who face many, he says.

Research shows that "the largest benefits of early education are reaped by children with developmental vulnerabilities and or socioeconomic challenges but the proposed pre-K programs will float the boats of all children," Kershaw adds.

The 2007 Report on the State of Early Childhood Learning by the Canadian Council on Learning found that more than one in four Canadian children enters school with "a learning or behavioural problem that threatens his or her future success." It's a sobering reality given that early learning and overall healthy development are "inextricable," the council warns.

Yet the gap between haves and have-nots is getting deeper even as the province doubles programs such as StrongStart free drop-in centres for preschoolers. In 2005, Statistics Canada reports, the richest fifth of Canadians got 16 per cent richer than they were in 1980 and the poorest fifth got 20 per cent poorer. And B.C. led the country with an 11 per cent plunge in median earnings between 1980 and 2005.

… Before making any decisions, B.C. is studying what other jurisdictions have done with early education. Ontario provides part-time junior kindergarten for four-year olds and is looking at full days for both four and five year-olds. In the U.S., more than 20 per cent of four-year-olds attend publicly funded preschool or pre-kindergarten, notes the consultation paper of the B.C. Early Childhood Learning Agency.

If B.C. adopts early learning for three-year-olds through the public system, and parents opt in, the province would rival France, where almost all children age three to five attend free preschools that are part of the school system with a national curriculum.

Bond says B.C. has not yet come up with a budget estimate for full-day kindergarten in September 2009, and the decision whether to proceed will not be made until the end of 2008. "If we decide to move forward, that would be our target [date]," she says. But full days would not be mandatory.

Asked whether kindergarten would be supported by new money, Bond avoids a direct answer. She says: "It's a new initiative" and B.C. will continue to invest in education, where spending is at an all-time high despite declining enrolment. "This really isn't a surprising next step for us," Bond says. "It is something we have built the foundation for for quite some time."

As yet, there has been no indication from the province whether parents would be expected to make direct financial contributions for children aged three and four. In Germany, parents pay an average of 14 per cent of the services for preschool age children; in the Netherlands and Ireland, it's publicly funded beginning at age four.

As far as fees in B.C., "nothing's been determined because the feasibility study is still being done and the report is still being written," a ministry spokesman says.

Whether preschool programming would be integrated with current community programs or offered only in schools are "exactly the questions that we're asking as we do the homework necessary to make a shift of this magnitude," Bond says.

… Rather than an academic, Bond says, a "best practices" play-based learning program is under consideration for three- and four-year-olds because "that's how little ones learn."

The NDP supports the concept of early learning, says education critic Norm Macdonald, but "with all of these initiatives, it's really the detail that has to be examined and the actual plan laid out and looked at."

Macdonald, who is on leave from his position as an elementary school principal, says the Liberals should have given the public some ballpark figures on cost before putting the idea into February's Throne speech.

The Campbell government has a history of not following through on "massive announcements," he says. He cited its plan to make B.C. the most literate jurisdiction in North America by 2010, later bumped to 2015. According to B.C. Auditor General John Doyle, "while government has demonstrated some leadership in promoting literacy over the last few years, plans have been slow in coming together."

Meanwhile, Mary Murrell's four-year-old son, Nicholas, is due to start kindergarten in 2009. Would she be happy about full-day kindergarten?

"I'd be ecstatic."

But as a board member of a childcare facility, she's not in favour of earlier learning along a traditional school model, saying children younger than five need a more nurturing approach. The early childhood educators at her child's preschool are "like second moms."

Bond says the province is doing its homework: "There are no predetermined answers. We're simply saying we want more choice and we want to figure out what the best model for families would be in the province."

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WHAT THE MINISTER SAYS

'We're simply saying we want more choice and we want to figure out what the best model for families would be in the province.'

Shirley Bond, B.C. Minister of Education

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WHAT IT COULD COST

If it goes ahead, full-day kindergarten by 2009 could affect an estimated 36,197 five-year-olds in B.C., including 2,300 in the capital region. But it would not be mandatory.

The province has not released a budget estimate for adding an extra half-day kindergarten next year. Using current per-capita expenditures, the Times Colonist has calculated rough estimates based on full participation by 2012-13.

We multiplied the number of students anticipated by $4,039, which is half the full-day per-capita grant and then subtracted $20 million to account for 5,000 B.C. students already attending full-day kindergarten. They are students of English as a second language, aboriginal children and children with special needs.

For early education, we multiplied the per-capita grant times the number of children and the number of years they would be in the public system by 2012-13 -- the year full-day early education for three-year-olds would be in place, if the proposal under study goes ahead.

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CURRENT COSTS

- Full-day per-capita grant: $8,078.

- Operating budgets of B.C. school districts: $4.47 billion

- Provincial increase in operating budget over last year: $122 million

- Decrease in B.C. students since 2001: More than 50,000

- Increase in per-student funding since 2001: $1,862 per student

-- Source: B.C. Ministry of Education

ESTIMATED COSTS

- Cost to extend kindergarten for five-year-olds by half-days: $126 million for one year; $504 million including 2012-13.

- Cost to provide full-day early learning to 42,000 four-year-olds by 2010: $339 million per year; $1 billion including 2012-13

- Cost to provide a full-day program for 43,000 three-year-olds for 2012-13: $347 million

- Total cost to provide full-day programs for children ages 3 to 5 by the 2012-13 school year: $1.851 billion