The early childhood plan - and its cost
By JANET STEFFENHAGEN
06-04-2009
Vancouver Sun

… According to the report, the annual cost of providing all-day programs for three-, four- and five-year-olds in schools would be $600 million a year.

How does B.C. compare to other provinces? New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Quebec offer full-day K for all five-year-olds; Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Quebec offer some programs for four-year-olds. Ontario offers part-day kindergarten for four-year-old and is planning for implementarion of full-day K for both four- and five-year-olds.

The report contains lots of interesting information - as it should since the April-to-December review cost taxpayers $60,006.

It concludes by saying the next step will be the development of program standards. Once in place, those standards will be used to set up five to ten pilot sites for full-day, pre-kindergarten, to be evaluated over two year. Read the report here.

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