UNIVERSAL PRE-SCHOOL education, due to be introduced next year, could damage young children if it is not sufficiently resourced, according to the children’s charity Barnardos.
Speaking at the publication of the charity's latest campaign document on educational disadvantage, Written Out, Written Off,Barnardos director of advocacy Norah Gibbons said early educational interventions were crucial in combating disadvantage.
“However, poor quality pre-school education can actually do damage in terms of young children’s emotional and social development,” she said.
“It really is important these pre-schools are properly resourced.”
Barnardos welcomed the new policy, announced in the Government’s supplementary budget, that from January a year of early education will be introduced for all children aged between three years three months and four years and six months.
“But we are concerned about the quality issue,” said Ms Gibbons.
Echoing her, Professor Paul Connolly, of the Centre for Effective Education at Queen’s University, Belfast, said in-depth British studies made a “stark” finding that “at best, low-quality early education had no impact at all. In some cases it can cause harm.”
The Written Out, Written Offcampaign draws on data in an ESRI study, Investing in Education: Combating Educational Disadvantage, also published yesterday.
Among findings in the study:
Early school-leavers are three to four times more likely to be unemployed than their more educated peers;
The majority of Irish prisoners have never sat a State exam and over half left school before the age of 15;
Early school-leavers are more likely to be in poor health, to suffer anxiety and mental health problems;
Early school-leavers are 4.5 times more likely to be in receipt of a medical card;
Girls who left school early were more likely to go on to be single mothers than girls who completed their Leaving Certificate.
“These figures indicate the high cost to the State of early school leaving,” said Ms Gibbons.
“While much effort has been made in tackling educational disadvantage there is a huge sense that these inroads will be eroded by the education cutbacks.
“It is Barnardos’ view that these cuts will adversely affect those children who need the best start and help with their education.”
These cutbacks include increases in class-sizes, reinstating the cap on language support teachers, the abolition of numerous grant schemes including the school-book grant and the withdrawal of some funding from some designated disadvantaged schools.
Barnardos is calling for a halt to any further education cutbacks.
It is also calling for: an assurance that the free pre-school education will be of a high standard; a reversal of the decision to increase class sizes; improvements in the access and co-ordination of services working with schools such as the Education and Welfare Board and speech and language therapists, and, a roll-out of the national book rental scheme.
