Spend time at child care, parents advised

Parents are being encouraged to spend time at child care centres and kindergartens to find out what activities children are engaged in, and to familiarise themselves with the functioning of the centre.

Parents are also encouraged to visit different centres before making a choice.

These and other recommendations were made in a report on Early Childhood Education and Care launched last week by the Education Ministry.

The report, prepared by Valerie Sollars, chairman of the working group, Monica Attard, Chiara Borg and Brian Craus, suggests that centres should have clearly published literature with specific statements about their centre's philosophy, policies and practices.

This would enable parents to be in a better position to choose an early years setting which is appropriate to the needs of their child, rather than choose on the basis of recommendations of friends and relatives, the one criterion many parents use, according to research.

The national policy document gives recommendations with regard to educational institutions - child care centres that cater for children up to three years of age, kindergartens for children aged three to five, and schooling for children aged five to 11 - that take care of a child's development in these crucial years.

The emphasis on the need to have centres and institutions which cater for early childhood education spring out of the changes which the Maltese society is undergoing. The high standard of living people want to achieve may be implying a delay in parenthood and a drop in birth rate. The lack of suitable child-care centres may be a deterrent for young parents who would still like to maintain their job as well as raise a family, the report says.

Apart from recommendations on funding and practitioners' qualifications, it stresses that family-friendly policies at places of work need to be introduced.

"Employers have to be convinced that employees who are confident with their child-care arrangements contribute to greater productivity and better work output. Employees who rely on unstable child-care arrangements are more likely to absent themselves from work resulting in loss of productivity and efficiency."

This gains importance when considering how many couples rely on their family to take care of their children. The report states that recent research showed that almost one fifth of grandparents are only available for a limited time, while grandparents are unavailable for one tenth of the interviewed families.

"Currently, parents can choose to educate their children through one of three systems: state-education; an independent private school system or a church school system. With a few exceptions, most state kindergarten centres are attached to the primary school. In the private sector, centres that cater for early childhood education are more varied. Some private centres provide services for kindergarten-aged children only and are located in large private houses. Such centres are completely independent from any other institution.

"Other private schools admit children at the age of five and offer primary schooling only; some admit children at the age of four and use this one year at kindergarten to prepare the children for their first year in compulsory schooling within the same school system," the report explains.

Child day-care centres, which are a relatively recent phenomenon in Malta, are not a direct responsibility of any particular government entity. However, the role of regulatory body for the social welfare sector is being assumed by the Department for Social Welfare Standards, which is also addressing the child care sector.

On the other hand, first church-run kindergartens date many years ago, while state-run kindergartens developed in the 1988 with the aim of giving children the opportunity to socialise and develop their abilities under guidance, giving children who lacked suitable educational opportunities the chance to develop and catch up with the others, preparing for their admission to primary schools, and providing relief for working others. A number of small private kindergartens started operating in the late 1980s.

Copies of the report may be obtained from the Education Ministry, Floriana, or by downloading from www.education.gov.mt/ece.htm.