The 40 pilot Early Start projects set up in 1994 are still going. Yet they have not been added to. Grainne Fallerfinds out what's on offer in Ireland's early childhood education sector and asks if the interventions we are making are the best ones

It's easy to underestimate the goings-on in a pre-school classroom. After all, they're only colouring pictures and playing in the sand box, aren't they? How complicated can it be? Workers involved in the field are used to this attitude but it's difficult to understand why it exists when study after study on early childhood has found that participation in high-quality pre-school education is a key factor in a person's performance at all levels of education and beyond. Throw in the fact that any money spent at this stage can make returns of anything up to 700 per cent, and the idea of starting them early really starts to make sense.

Why, then, is Irish provision so dismal when it comes to early childhood education? Irish people pay far more and provision lags well behind our international counterparts. We spend less than one per cent of our education budget on early childhood care and education, while countries such as France, Germany, Denmark and Spain plough at least 10 per cent into this area.

The Early Start Pre-School Programme was a step in the right direction when it was established in 1994, but it has yet to be rolled out beyond the 40 schools in which it was piloted. A free pre-school programme for children from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds, Early Start is linked to specific primary schools. Children either attend a morning or an afternoon Early Start session. Each session consists of a maximum of 15 children who are taught a structured curriculum of pre-reading, pre-number and other skills by a qualified teacher and a qualified childcare worker. The idea is to increase their readiness for junior infants and also to give them a positive and gentle first introduction to school. Early Start also strives to include the parents of the children, encouraging them to get involved in their children's education and familiarising them with the school as well.

"It's so well-resourced in terms of staffing and funding," says Kathryn Crowley, principal of St Louise's Junior National School in Ballyfermot, Dublin. "We see the benefit. The children love coming into school and parents are much more relaxed around the place."

The Early Start classroom in St Louise's is large, colourful and very obviously well-resourced. Young, pre-school children are piecing jigsaws together, utterly absorbed.

"You should have seen them in September," says Gillian Delaney. "It was complete mayhem." Delaney has been working in the Early Start programme since 1997. Year after year, she has seen the benefits of the programme at first-hand.

"The difference from one end of the year to the other is huge," she says. "They're only babies when they come into us. They have no sense of routine - they'll want to eat their lunch at 9am - and they may not be used to being around other children. By Halloween they're in a routine with us . . . They know how to sit down and listen, they know that tidy up means tidy up."

Teachers of older classes, according to Delaney, can spot the children who have been to Early Start immediately.

The programme is still being evaluated and findings so far have been positive, although the performance of children who had participated in the programme on standardised tests was not found to better that of those children who hadn't participated.

Kathryn Crowley argues: "Early Start gives them a leg up initially, but really the true benefits are seen much later on."

This begs the question, if the benefits are so far reaching why, after 14 years, hasn't the programme been expanded beyond the initial 40 schools?

Heino Schonfeld, Director of the Centre for Early Childhood Development and Education (CECDE) believes that certain societal factors have required something of a rethink in our approach to the matter of early childhood education. The fact that more parents are now working outside the home than was the case in the mid-1990s has led to the widely acknowledged fact that two-and-a-half hours of provision in the morning or afternoon simply doesn't suit.

"Such a short intervention in the morning or the afternoon doesn't really address the needs of parents," Schonfeld says. "A huge growth in childcare facilities has led to many parents using these services instead. Early Start is a model that never really developed with the times."

The emphasis now, according to Schonfeld is still on early intervention targeted at socio-economically or educationally disadvantaged children, but in a more integrated way.

"The Department has changed its tack and the aim is now to provide quality early education in existing childcare facilities," Schonfeld says. "Early Start is very much separate from existing pre-schools so now they are looking to work within existing provisions."

The exact future of Early Start is as yet unknown. However, there are major lessons to be learned from its successes. The programme is well funded, with two adults to every 15 children in a session. "We never have to worry about the cost of resources," Delaney says. "We have the best stocked classroom in the school."

Added to that, the inclusion of parents in the children's education from Early Start onwards can have a hugely positive impact on both the child and the parents. It has been suggested that Early Start might benefit from being extended to a whole day rather than a half-day provision, or that it could combine provision with that of a neighbouring nursery or childcare centre, with children attending Early Start in the morning, and a childcare centre continuing the care and education in the afternoon, or vice versa.

Whatever is decided, the fact remains that we have a long way to go if we are to match the early childhood provisions of even very close neighbours such as the UK and Northern Ireland.

John Carr, general secretary of the INTO, makes the point that as it stands, early childhood education in Ireland is "the privilege of birth into a wealthy family."

We are, according to Schonfeld, at a critical time in planning. With the huge demographic and societal changes we have seen in this country, the focus has been almost entirely on the provision of childcare places with little or no mention of education. This is to the dismay of organisations such as the INTO who, although they acknowledge that early childhood education should be linked to childcare, insist that the quality must be a priority and that a child's opportunity to learn must be maximised.

While Ireland lags far behind other countries, it must be acknowledged that we have started from behind. Until just a few years ago, for example, childcare and early childhood education, were treated as separate issues by the State and responsibility for provision of different aspects of these services stretched across seven different Government departments. Recently this was addressed by establishing the Office of the Minister for Children, which now deals with the issue under one roof. Linked to that office is the Early Years Education Policy Unit, which is overseeing the development of policies for early childhood education provision.

Moves are being made in the right direction. The publication of the National Quality Framework for Early Childhood Education in Ireland, drawn up by the CECDE, is a positive step, as is the development, by the NCCA, of a National Framework for Early Childhood Learning. Added to that, the DEIS action plan for tackling disadvantage provides for one year of pre-school education to be available to children who will attend primary schools serving the most disadvantaged communities. The CECDE has surveyed these schools on behalf of the Department of Education to ascertain the existing childcare and pre-school services in their areas. Filling the gaps in provision for these children will be given priority for funding under the National Childcare Investment Programme.

Of course, implementing these new frameworks and initiatives properly will require a real financial commitment on the part of the Government.

"We simply won't get the benefit if the quality is not there," Schonfeld says. "The benefits of this kind of investment are long term." Indeed, longitudinal studies in other countries have found that children who received a very high quality of pre-school education were more likely to stay in school, less likely to need learning support, they got better grades and interestingly they are still reaping the benefits some 40 years on.

With results of this nature, the argument that free, early childhood education should be available to all children, not just those who are disadvantaged, gains weight.

"While children who are at a disadvantage benefit disproportionately, all children benefit from this kind of intervention," says Schonfeld. "There is a strong argument for universal provision."

Of course that kind of financial commitment to what is essentially a very long-term plan might be well beyond the scope of any political imagination. Whether we will ever see beyond the colouring and the sandpit in the preschool classroom simply remains to be seen.