Plans to integrate education and childcare through the concept of 'educare'
form the centrepiece of Government proposals to provide 'a flexible and personalised childcare package' and seamless services for children and families.
Under the five-year plan unveiled by education secretary Charles Clarke last week, by 2008 all parents of three- and four-year-olds will be offered 12 and a half hours of free educare, which they will be able to take flexibly over a minimum of 33 weeks a year.
But he indicated that educare would be extended more widely through children's centres in every community, nurseries, primary schools and childminder networks. The Department for Education and Skills will publish a paper in the autumn outlining the mechanisms for delivering it in other settings between 8am and 6pm, 48 weeks of the year.
'Particularly in the earliest years, children learn through play and exploration, and making an artificial distinction between education and childcare is unhelpful. Our aim is, wherever possible, to bring together nursery education and childcare into a single integrated offer for pre-school children - educare,' the document stated.
By 2008, 1,000 primary schools will be offering educare, providing places for 50,000 children. But the DfES said it expects every primary school either to offer it or be part of a network of schools providing it.
Eventually every child whose parents want it could benefit from this wrap-around care, either in their own school, or in a linked school, with supervised travel.
There will be 1,700 children's centres providing 'one-stop-support' with childcare, education, health and employment advice and help for children and families in the 20 per cent most disadvantaged wards by 2008.
The DfES plan noted that as 44 per cent of all children growing up in poverty do not live in areas of deprivation, the aim is to have a centre 'within easy reach of every parent'. It said the centres would increasingly act as a contact point for networks of childminders and nurseries.
Meanwhile extended schools will be developed to act as a hub for the provision of integrated services.
The onus will be on local authorities to develop the educare service and also spearhead the process of integrating services envisaged in the Green Paper, Every Child Matters, through the medium of children's trusts to be created in all areas in the next three years.
The plan said that parents would be given more opportunities to stay at home during their child's first two years, although maternity and paternity pay and leave would remain unchanged until 2006. It did not rule out increases or further measures on flexible family-friendly working arrangements.
The DfES said the development of an appropriately skilled children's workforce would be crucial in implementing its reforms. It stated, 'The new Sector Skills Council for children's services will lead in the development of a common core of skills, knowledge and competence for all who work with children, young people and families, and a complementary set of qualifications.'