Despite initial good intentions the Government still takes a fragmented approach to childcare and education. With another review in sight Peter Moss says: think again
Tucked away in this year's Budget statement, Gordon Brown gave notice of yet another childcare review: 'I have asked the (next) Spending Review to examine the future of childcare and family-friendly policies'.
While a little mystifying - haven't we just had an Interdepartmental Childcare Review? - this announcement is still welcome. The review just passed was disappointing, being narrowly focused and uncritical. After six years of frenetic Government activity, a more thoughtful exercise is due that questions assumptions, confronts issues and is prepared to consider different futures. For the reality of the past six years is that so much has been more of the same.
'Childcare' has continued to be treated as a private responsibility for parents. Government involvement has continued to be confined to regulation and remedying so-called market failure (for example, tax credits for low-income families, new programmes for disadvantaged areas).
'Early education' has continued to be a modest part-time offer, and children, at least in England, continue to start 'school proper' aged just four.
The divide between 'childcare' and 'education' has continued, both structurally (for example, two workforces and two funding systems) and conceptually (the way in which Government talks about 'childcare' as a distinct service and policy field). When Labour came to power, responsibility for childcare and education was divided between two departments, health and education. Now, after having integrated responsibility into one department, we are back to dual departmental responsibility. The Sure Start Unit is accountable to two departments, education and work.
Is that what you want?
The newly announced review could be an opportunity at last to break the mold. But that means not getting bogged down in technical questions about how to get more places out of the present system. It means starting way back and asking basic critical questions about what we want for children and families. Let me offer some suggestions, to start what should be an open democratic debate.
We now have a two-tier system of pre-school services. There is an emerging set of inclusive, integrated and publicly funded services for a minority of the population (Children's Centres, Sure Start). But most parents must contend with a confusion of exclusive, inflexible and fragmented services: private day nurseries and family day carers, playgroups and nursery classes, family centres and nursery schools. Is this what we want today? Should we stick with this two-tier approach? Or should Government take the lead in moving towards a universal care and education service, based on children's centres for all?
The two-tier system reflects two very different ideas of pre-school services in Government policy. Early education and a developing network of services in disadvantaged areas are regarded as a public good and community infrastructure. Other 'childcare' services are viewed as a private commodity and individual benefit. Should we retain this split thinking, or treat all pre-school services as public goods?
The UK has a high level of for-profit providers, accounting for nearly 90 per cent of nurseries. Do we need a better mix of providers? Can for-profit nurseries targeting more affluent working parents become part of a democratically-accountable inclusive network of services providing for all children and parents in their community?
Despite some rhetoric, childcare and education remain very separate in practice. Government treats childcare as a distinct field, viewing it as a means to support economic and social goals. Government talks about 'childcare' services, 'childcare' workers, 'childcare' tax credits, 'childcare' reviews. Do we want to continue seeing and treating 'childcare' as separate from education? Or do we want to get to a place where childcare and education really are inseparable?
Workers and funding
It is only when such critical, ethical and political questions have been raised and discussed that we can move to more technical questions. 'What works?', this Government's mantra, is an important question for policy and practice. But before asking 'what works?' we need to ask what we want. What is a good childhood? What do we want for our children? What is our image of the child? What are institutions such as early childhood centres for?
Having struggled with these essential questions, a review can move to the technical questions. Here two issues stand out. First, what should be the future workforce? Do we want to continue with a two-tier workforce, an officer corps of teachers and an army of childcare workers? Is it desirable, let alone sustainable, to rely so heavily on poorly trained and poorly paid women workers?
Do we need a new worker who will become the workforce mainstay across a wide range of services? Who should that worker be? A new type of teacher (as in Sweden), a pedagogue (as in Denmark), or some British variant? And at what level of training and pay?
Second, and following on closely from the first question, how should integrated services with an integrated workforce be funded? Apart from a plethora of funding streams and small payments from social services (for children in need) and employers (for selected staff), there are currently three main sources: parental fees, tax credits and direct funding for early education. The net result is that, apart from early education, parents pay most of the bill (over 80 per cent in the case of nurseries). Although increased recently, public expenditure remains low, around 0.3 per cent of GDP for pre-school care and education services and school-age childcare.
Does it make sense to have such complex and diverse funding arrangements? How should costs be shared, especially between parents and state? Is it time to stop expecting employers to contribute individually, on grounds of principle and practicality?
School days
The new review will include children of school age, and rightly so. Getting it right means taking a broad view, looking at the relationship between education and care across pre-school and school. Changes are happening for school-age children. But once again the approach is too cautious. We have school-age 'childcare', perhaps on the school site, but always apart from school, such as 'wraparound care'.
'Extended schools' may end up just as bases for other services. Why not a new integrative relationship between schooling and childcare services? If there is a case for saying care and education are inseparable for younger children, why not say the same for school-age children? At present the Foundation Stage and the National Curriculum appear to confront each other, each offering different concepts of education and learning. Can any review of services for pre-school and school-age children ignore such an apparent contradiction?
Broader view
The review needs to be ambitious, critical and reflective. It must work with theories and concepts. How do social constructions and welfare regimes shape policy and practice? What concepts would support integrated structures and working? For example, would a concept like 'education in its broadest sense' or 'pedagogy' - both of which start from the assumption that education, care and much else besides are inseparable - be useful?
The review should also look abroad, not to search for exotic imports, but to stimulate critical questions and help recognise hidden values and assumptions that constrain new thinking.
Sweden, for example, is engaged in a process of totally integrating childcare and education services that jolts many of our taken-for-granted ways of doing things. Universal access to publicly-funded services is on offer to children from 12 months; 'whole day schools' combine education and childcare, and may be managed by nursery workers, school teachers or school-age childcare workers.
These three professions are merging with a new common degree-level training. Parents in Sweden pay higher taxes, but parents in the UK pay much more for nurseries, and nursery staff have far lower training and pay.
Another question
But before starting on these issues, the terms of reference for the review need sorting. Those announced by the Chancellor in July confirm my worst fears. The focus is on numbers of places, another narrow technical brief. Is it too late? Has the opportunity been missed yet again?
Or could the Chancellor be persuaded to have second thoughts? Could he get beyond narrow 'childcare policy' to something genuinely radical and ambitious?
Could he call on the Secretary of State for Education and his new Minister for Children to conduct a review which went something like this? - 'to consider the future relationship of care and education and of early childhood services and schools, with particular attention to the development of universally-available, inclusive and integrated services'?