Scotland’s childcare expansion programme: new data published

The Scottish Government has published the third phase of its Scottish Study of Early Learning and Childcare (SSELC), a research project established to evaluate the expansion of early learning and childcare in Scotland.

This final phase of the baseline data collection, looked at three-year-old children in their first term of funded ELC [early learning and childcare] provision, and also followed up the same group of eligible two-year-old children from Phase 1 of the study after they had experienced a year of 600 hours of ELC.

The report states, ‘There are some indications that an increase in hours of ELC may benefit the more disadvantaged families and help to close the gap. The year of ELC the Eligible 2s have already received appears to have helped them on measures of development.

‘The parents of the Eligible 2s tend to have engaged well with the ELC settings and they recognise the opportunities afforded to them in having their child in nursery, in terms of taking up employment or having more time to do other things.’

However, the summary findings in the report state that the data should be interpreted ‘with caution’.

It reads, ‘While there appears to be progress, it is important to remember that Phase 3 is part of the baseline, and the key objective will be to assess whether the progress is greater after a year of 1140 hours of ELC once the expansion is complete.’