Does everyone agree what childcare means?

Helen PennCass School of Education

University of East London, UK

Childcare or education?

• Definitions of and boundaries between childcare and education varies considerably across EU countries

• Many countries in process of revising their childcare and education systems to meet new political priorities

• Some common principles put forward by OECD and UNICEF about quality of services, whether childcare or education

OECD parameters of quality• Continuous investment

• Co-ordinated policy and regulatory framework

• Efficient and co-ordinated management systems at all levels

• Adequate levels of staff training and working conditions

OECD parameters of quality

• Pedagogic frameworks and guidelines

• Monitoring

• Concern with equality and diversity

UNICEF – a holistic approach to early childhood

Investment,planning, staff training etc AND

• An equitable environment – low levels of child poverty

• Good maternal and child health services

• Good parental leave and family friendly policies

• A national plan for children which takes child rights seriously and has “the best interests of the child” at its heart

Problems of Definition and Administration

• EU countries historically have evolved different schemes of early education and care, based on different value systems and with different priorities. Because of these differences it is often difficult to interpret or apply OECD/UNICEF principles

• There is an over-reliance on an Anglo-American research base, which takes a marketized childcare system for granted.

Some values and priorities across the EU• The image of the child – strong and independent or

vulnerable and weak or blank cipher?

• The image of the mother – role to service her child or a person in her own right with her own work?

• The image of the family – conventional nuclear family or diverse family patterns?

• The image of the teacher/carer- an educationalist or a substitute mother/carer?

• The role of the market – for-profit childcare acceptable or exploitative?

The image of the child

• Services designed for the child prioritize child’s need for continuity, stability, peer friendships, respect and self-determination eg Sweden, Northern Italy

• Services designed to bolster employment for women prioritize dovetailing with employers requirements, “flexible childcare” irrespective of the need of child for continuity, stability of care or peer friendships eg UK, Ireland

• Services which prioritize age as a crucial variable – services designed around the age of the child eg Hungary

• Targeted services designed to provide welfare support to vulnerable children prioritize intervention programmes to make children more productive citizens in the future –and less criminally inclined - the potentially bad child who must be made good. eg USA

The image of the mother

• Traditional gendered view of mother as person whose primary job is to support and service her child to demonstrate “parental responsibility” irrespective of her own needs and activities – reflected in gendered parental leave and maternity arrangements and in welfarist family support programmes

• View of mother as an independent working person, no different from father in meeting work or childcare responsibilities – reflected in egalitarian parental leave and maternity and paternity arrangements

Image of the family

• “There really is no ‘entity’ the family into which the state either does or does not intervene. People associate in many different ways, live together, love together, have children. Which of these will be given the name “family” is a legal and political matter, never one to be simply decided by the parties themselves” (Nussbaum, 2000)

• Does the benefit system and childcare arrangement presume a particular kind of family structure? Nuclear family model the most often assumed, but increasingly irrelevant?

The image of the teacher/carer

• All staff highly trained teachers to deliver education (3/4 year graduate training) eg France

• 60% staff highly trained pedagogue (3/4 year graduate training) with emphasis on facilitating social relations (eg Denmark)

• Substitute mother ( 2 year post 16 vocational training) eg nursery nurses in UK. (Now intention to provide 1 childcare graduate in each childcare setting)

The role of the market

• The market has no role, universal services provided by the state, for-profit childcare unwelcome; services free or limited cost eg France, Finland

• “Childcare market management” left to the market to provide services, job of local authorities only to stimulate and regulate the market; market determines price; services very expensive for user eg UK, Ireland

Some administrative differences

• Formal school starting age – varies between 4 and 7

• Split between care and education – childcare for vulnerable children and working parents and parallel part-time nursery education

• Balance between central government control and local municipal control

• Health based care for children under two – universal education for children over two eg Belgium, France

• Childcare a universal service for all children – eg Nordic countries

• Education a (potentially) universal system for all children – eg Spain

Enduring traditions?

• Systems of early education and care rooted in country’s history, very difficult to move away from past traditions

• Comparisons problematic because of different systems

• If harmonization of early education and childcare, and women’s access to the labour market within EU a priority, then new EU benchmarks needed about standards of early education and care services and reconciliation of family life and employment. At present young children’s experiences and opportunities, as well as support given to mothers’ produce inequity across EU.