Little care for children
Naunidhi Kaur | Saturday, 7 June 2008
Olivia Harper, 24, a single mother in Toronto, sees difficult times ahead of her. Working as an administrative assistant she makes just enough money to pay the grocery bills and rent for her expensive downtown apartment. She finds herself helpless when she cannot come up with the exorbitant cost of the licensed day care for her daughter Anna.
Harper leaves Anna at the day care in Scarborough, Ontario, which is near her workplace and is cheap. The day care is situated in a low-rent building in a dimly lit room. Anna plays with plastic toys, tabletop games and worksheets which keep her occupied but offer limited scope for learning. The staff has university degrees but little training in handling young children.
Harper says: "In winters it gets worse. There are no outdoor activities and Anna seems to spend most of her time inside. With my job I have no option but to bypass the expensive regulated child care and settle for this day care." Harper asks, "Is it too much to ask for a child care system of licensed family care and group care that truly meets my needs and budget?"
Questions like these are common in the province. Ontario residents pay the highest day care fees in Canada at an average of $30 a day.
Parents like Harper are waiting for the government to finish discussions in February (2005) and finally give shape to the long overdue national policy on child care.
When Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in its report, `The Early Childhood Education and Care Policy', said (in October 2004) that Canada's child care is failing, it was not exaggerating. OECD said Canada is languishing in terms of quality and investment in education and care for children. The report found less than 20 per cent of Canadian children under six have access to regulated care, compared to 78 per cent in Denmark, 69 per cent in France and 60 per cent in Britain.
Lack of public investment leaves Canadian parents paying, on average, nearly half the costs of care, compared to a European average of 25 per cent and a low of 15 per cent in Finland. Most of the children are growing up without a solid, development programme, the report emphasised.
Over 63 per cent of Canadian women are in the workforce with children under three. With the pre-school system in Canada in shambles, working women are at a receiving end. According to a Statistics Canada study, 35 per cent of women workers find balancing work and family stressful to the point that it "constantly" to "frequently" interferes with their concentration at work.
The OECD report has been taken seriously by policymakers who reinvigorated their demand for a nationally coordinated and publicly funded childcare plan. Executive Director of the Canadian Child Care Federation (CCCF) Barbara Coyle says, "Expectations for a national early learning and child care system have been raised yet another notch with this report."
The Royal Commission on the Status of Women first proposed a national child care system in 1970. At the time of elections, Conservative governments in 1984 and 1987 also promised national child care but failed to fulfill their promise. Children continued to be taken care by nannies or by relatives, in unlicensed in-home care or by parents working shift work.
Only the province of Quebec has an efficient child care system. To the obvious frustration of parents in the rest of the country, in Quebec parents pay only $7 for child care everyday.
At the time of federal elections in 2004, tall promises were made by all political parties about overhauling the child care system in the country and making it along the lines of Quebec. Prime Minister Paul Martin's government has promised to spend $5 billion to add up to 250,000 quality, regulated child care spaces by 2009. In November 2004, federal, provincial and territorial ministers responsible for child care agreed to work on a pan-Canadian child care programme. By February end (2005), they will also decide whether the system will be publicly funded and would be non-profit.
Recently, child care groups have launched a `building block' campaign to influence the Members of Parliament and Ministers of Provincial Parliament. The campaign includes sending lifesize models or even pamphlets and letters, with building blocks drawn on them, to policymakers. Little children have drawn building blocks in blue, yellow, red and orange on paper. Each block stands for a principle of child care including public accountability, child care act, publically funded child care system and money for children.
The Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care says: "These building blocks are tested and solid. They come out of 30 years of collective experience, research and practice in early learning and care."
Research released in January 2005 showed that non-profit day cares perform better. "From our study, it appears that non-profit child care would make good public policy," says Professor Gordon Cleveland from the University of Toronto, based on a study exploring which day care centres are better-non-profit or those which run for profit. Professor Cleveland found that children at non-profit child care centres were better looked after and backed by a friendly, warm staff, were progressing better when it came to language and thought development.
Child care specialists say that working conditions of child care workers should also be improved. Member Child Care Human Resources Sector Council (CCHRSC), Raymonde Leblanc says, "Quality child care cannot happen without trained staff." CCHRSC which has studied the working conditions of the child care workers says that earned income of child care workers is half the national average for all occupations and less than half as much as elementary school and kindergarten teachers.
According to CCHRC, in 2000, the average annual income was $21,000 for those working outside the home, and $15,000 for those inside the home. Low income levels continue to discourage more people to join this sector.
Harper leaves Anna at the day care in Scarborough, Ontario, which is near her workplace and is cheap. The day care is situated in a low-rent building in a dimly lit room. Anna plays with plastic toys, tabletop games and worksheets which keep her occupied but offer limited scope for learning. The staff has university degrees but little training in handling young children.
Harper says: "In winters it gets worse. There are no outdoor activities and Anna seems to spend most of her time inside. With my job I have no option but to bypass the expensive regulated child care and settle for this day care." Harper asks, "Is it too much to ask for a child care system of licensed family care and group care that truly meets my needs and budget?"
Questions like these are common in the province. Ontario residents pay the highest day care fees in Canada at an average of $30 a day.
Parents like Harper are waiting for the government to finish discussions in February (2005) and finally give shape to the long overdue national policy on child care.
When Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in its report, `The Early Childhood Education and Care Policy', said (in October 2004) that Canada's child care is failing, it was not exaggerating. OECD said Canada is languishing in terms of quality and investment in education and care for children. The report found less than 20 per cent of Canadian children under six have access to regulated care, compared to 78 per cent in Denmark, 69 per cent in France and 60 per cent in Britain.
Lack of public investment leaves Canadian parents paying, on average, nearly half the costs of care, compared to a European average of 25 per cent and a low of 15 per cent in Finland. Most of the children are growing up without a solid, development programme, the report emphasised.
Over 63 per cent of Canadian women are in the workforce with children under three. With the pre-school system in Canada in shambles, working women are at a receiving end. According to a Statistics Canada study, 35 per cent of women workers find balancing work and family stressful to the point that it "constantly" to "frequently" interferes with their concentration at work.
The OECD report has been taken seriously by policymakers who reinvigorated their demand for a nationally coordinated and publicly funded childcare plan. Executive Director of the Canadian Child Care Federation (CCCF) Barbara Coyle says, "Expectations for a national early learning and child care system have been raised yet another notch with this report."
The Royal Commission on the Status of Women first proposed a national child care system in 1970. At the time of elections, Conservative governments in 1984 and 1987 also promised national child care but failed to fulfill their promise. Children continued to be taken care by nannies or by relatives, in unlicensed in-home care or by parents working shift work.
Only the province of Quebec has an efficient child care system. To the obvious frustration of parents in the rest of the country, in Quebec parents pay only $7 for child care everyday.
At the time of federal elections in 2004, tall promises were made by all political parties about overhauling the child care system in the country and making it along the lines of Quebec. Prime Minister Paul Martin's government has promised to spend $5 billion to add up to 250,000 quality, regulated child care spaces by 2009. In November 2004, federal, provincial and territorial ministers responsible for child care agreed to work on a pan-Canadian child care programme. By February end (2005), they will also decide whether the system will be publicly funded and would be non-profit.
Recently, child care groups have launched a `building block' campaign to influence the Members of Parliament and Ministers of Provincial Parliament. The campaign includes sending lifesize models or even pamphlets and letters, with building blocks drawn on them, to policymakers. Little children have drawn building blocks in blue, yellow, red and orange on paper. Each block stands for a principle of child care including public accountability, child care act, publically funded child care system and money for children.
The Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care says: "These building blocks are tested and solid. They come out of 30 years of collective experience, research and practice in early learning and care."
Research released in January 2005 showed that non-profit day cares perform better. "From our study, it appears that non-profit child care would make good public policy," says Professor Gordon Cleveland from the University of Toronto, based on a study exploring which day care centres are better-non-profit or those which run for profit. Professor Cleveland found that children at non-profit child care centres were better looked after and backed by a friendly, warm staff, were progressing better when it came to language and thought development.
Child care specialists say that working conditions of child care workers should also be improved. Member Child Care Human Resources Sector Council (CCHRSC), Raymonde Leblanc says, "Quality child care cannot happen without trained staff." CCHRSC which has studied the working conditions of the child care workers says that earned income of child care workers is half the national average for all occupations and less than half as much as elementary school and kindergarten teachers.
According to CCHRC, in 2000, the average annual income was $21,000 for those working outside the home, and $15,000 for those inside the home. Low income levels continue to discourage more people to join this sector.