Sinéad Matson: The seismic shift of Core Funding could right many wrongs in childcare sector
The Core Funding model promises to deliver the pay and recognition that 30,000 childcare workers — mostly women, who founded and still largely run the sector — marched for in February 2020. Picture: Garrett White/Collins
Childcare (or early childhood education and care to use its proper name) has traditionally been a cottage industry, founded by women in their houses or community halls to provide playgroups and care to local children.
As early as 1969, the Irish Preschool Playgroups Association were calling for quality provision and regulation.
n 1989, the National Children’s Nurseries Association also called for quality and high standards of care for children. Alongside their Montessori counterparts, the female-dominated workforce mobilised themselves and stepped up where the State did not — in providing care and education in the first six years of a child’s life.
State involvement did not come about in any meaningful way until the Celtic Tiger roared and women headed into the workforce in numbers never seen before. And yet, it was reluctant involvement — the State did not wish to contradict the Constitution which sees parents as primary educators and allows for women to stay in the home to care for children.
In 2009, during an unprecedented economic crash, the State provided universal preschool education for all children.
The ECCE (early childhood care and education) scheme paid for preschool education for children for three hours a day, 38 weeks a year.
The scheme was met with hostility, as providers argued that it would put them out of business. In truth, the scheme, for all its flaws, saved a lot of ECEC businesses in Ireland, and provided quality early childhood experiences for children who would otherwise not have received it.
In many ways, the ECCE scheme distorted the market model. It provided investment in early childhood education and care, but only in the preschool sector. It created a shift in the relationship between providers and the State. Effectively, the State was contracting out the delivery of a public good to a predominantly private sector.
This created tensions between a private, self-employed service provider used to making their own decisions about their business and a State which had to use quality and economic indicators and audits to account for every cent spent from the public purse.
The funding of the ECCE scheme also had unintended consequences. It invested in services but not the workforce. It paid more money to those who could employ staff with a degree to work with the preschool children. Fewer than 8% of the sector had a degree at the time. Children under three years of age were largely neglected; they received no grants and no graduates.
Still to this day, it is no longer economically sound to operate services for children under three when they cost more money in terms of staffing levels, legislated ratios, and required environmental spaces. It is more cost-efficient to run two sessions of preschool a day, with graduate staff (ensuring a higher capitation from the State) and an after-school session in the afternoons. Many creches changed their business models and we now have a shortage of baby and toddler provision in the country.
Just like 2009, the sector is on the cusp of unprecedented, historic State investment; and just like 2009, 808 of 4,680 providers (17%) are vociferously against it, saying it will close their businesses.
On March 7, Roderic O’Gorman, the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, announced a funding model called Core Funding. It’s touted to be the first in a number of rounds of substantial investment by the State in order to deliver early childhood education and care as a public good.
Core Funding will see a fundamental shift in the relationship between providers and the State. It will right many of the unintended wrongs the ECCE scheme caused. It will see funding provided for children under three years of age and encourage graduate staffing. It will provide €138m for a historic pay deal for professionals working in the sector, with an additional €38m graduate premium.
This is a seismic shift. Finally, the pay and recognition that 30,000 professionals marched for on the streets of Dublin, in February 2020, will be realised. Added to that, lower fees for parents will bring Ireland in line with the European average and, more importantly, quality experiences for children are guaranteed.
So, what is the catch?
The minister has made it clear that two thirds of funding is dependent on a pay deal. This would secure improved pay and conditions for employees. Improving pay is a key driver of quality for children.
Currently, staff turnover in full day care services is 40% per year, undermining quality for children. Providers must also agree not to raise their fees. If this is not agreed, the Core Funding goes back to the exchequer and the investment is not made.
An enormous amount of trust in the State is required. It also requires handing over some control of a provider’s business — something they have experienced with the ECCE scheme and the National Childcare Scheme.
If private providers would look back at history and remember the initial fear and anger at the introduction of the ECCE scheme and how it worked out; if they could remember the feeling of solidarity as thousands of mostly women marched shoulder to shoulder for pay and conditions, they will make the right choice, the historic choice — to give professionals in the sector the ability to earn a living wage and have job stability, knowing that 30,883 professionals will march again, shoulder-to-shoulder for increased security for providers.
It is a big ask but providers must make the leap, for those that would make the leap with them, if they could.
- Sinéad Matson has worked in early childhood education and care for over 20 years and is an academic consultant and lecturer in Progressive College.
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