1. Context of the review

Abstract

This report discusses ways to improve the quality of Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) in Ireland with a specific emphasis on aspects related to workforce development, and quality assurance and improvement. It is based on findings from the OECD Quality beyond Regulations project, which analyses how policies can enhance quality in ECEC, and more particularly, the quality of interactions children experience at their ECEC settings, or process quality. This first chapter explains the main features of the OECD Quality beyond Regulations project and how the review on Ireland has been undertaken. It then discusses the policy context of the review and presents the main strengths and challenges faced by Ireland regarding equity, funding and governance of ECEC.

The OECD Quality beyond Regulations project

Early childhood education and care (ECEC) holds tremendous potential for children, families and societies when it is of high quality. High-quality ECEC is crucial for children’s development, learning and well-being and supports children’s outcomes later in life, including school performance, labour market participation, and physical and mental health. At the societal level, quality ECEC can foster increased intergenerational social mobility, social integration and a reduction of poverty (OECD, 2018[1]). Children from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds are most likely to benefit from high-quality ECEC.

The OECD’s Quality beyond Regulations policy review supports countries and jurisdictions to better understand the different dimensions of quality in ECEC and the policies that can enhance process quality in particular. As part of its participation in this project, Ireland asked the OECD to conduct an in-depth review of the Irish ECEC system (also referred to as Early Learning and Care or ELC in Ireland). The review focuses on the quality of ECEC in Ireland, in particular on policies that can support process quality, or the quality of interactions children experience at their ECEC settings, and emphasises aspects related to workforce development, and quality assurance and improvement.

The overarching objective of the review is to provide policy recommendations to strengthen the performance of the ECEC system in Ireland, in line with national policy goals. The review analyses the strengths and challenges of existing ECEC policies in Ireland from a comparative international perspective and provides recommendations for future policy development.

Specific objectives include:

Informing future policy design and implementation, through recommendations on policy development and guidance on key considerations that can facilitate successful delivery in view of the national context.
Providing an opportunity for Ireland to learn from other OECD member countries and international good practice to generate new thinking on ECEC quality development.

This first chapter discusses the main strengths and challenges faced by Ireland regarding equity, funding and governance of ECEC, and makes recommendations to inform discussions on ongoing and future policy developments, summarised at the beginning of the chapter (Box 1.1).

Box 1.1. Policy recommendations

Funding

Implement plans to increase public funding substantively in order to make ECEC more affordable for families, strengthen the workforce and support the policy agenda for quality improvement in the sector, as announced in the budget for 2022. Ireland’s public investment per child in ECEC should catch-up with the average in OECD countries.
Ensure that the new funding model leads to transparent and stable mechanisms for the level and allocation of public funding in the sector.
Accompany any increase in public funding with a strengthening and streamlining of the monitoring framework as discussed in Chapter 3.
Implement plans to reach a commitment on capping fees for parents while taking into account the heterogeneous financial situation of different settings. In the future, assess the implications of the new funding model and the expected adoption of standards for working conditions on the financial sustainability of the sector.

Equity and inclusion

Improve affordability and accessibility for children from disadvantaged backgrounds. Implement plans to revise the National Childcare Scheme (NCS) to simplify it and ensure that all parents are able to request it. Continue close monitoring to help understand if the programme is meeting the needs of families and to inform further improvements.
Make efforts to overcome the duality between provision for the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) programme and non-ECCE provision by increasing funding for younger children, aligning incentives to attract qualified staff, and extending education-focused inspections to non-ECCE programmes, as committed to in First 5 (see Chapters 2 and 3).
Ensure that eligible children with special needs have access to the Access and Inclusion Model (AIM) by training ECEC staff to help identify children’s need for the programme, in support of expert’s assessments. Consider further efforts to support inclusion in ECEC, such as providing additional specialised expertise (e.g. through multidisciplinary teams or local/regional hubs) and building connections with initiatives in tackling disadvantage from the primary school system, as committed to in First 5.
Make further efforts in addressing other sources of disadvantage in ECEC, in particular for the inclusion of children from Traveller and Roma communities, for example by supporting ECEC staff to gain further knowledge and training on their specific needs.

Governance and reforms agenda

Strengthen co-ordination across departments and agencies to deliver coherent and efficient ECEC policies while ensuring that co-ordination arrangements are not unduly burdensome. If a central agency is created, ensure that such agency has real co-ordination power and dedicated functions so that it does not add another layer of governance.
Continue to communicate the features of the new funding model to inform implementation of the Workforce Development plan and the negotiations on working conditions.
Continue to ensure that policy design and reform is conducted with a participatory approach, ensuring that all actors in the sector feel represented. Continue communicating transparently with all stakeholders in the sector, so that they are informed on what to expect at every stage.

A review of process quality in early childhood education and care in OECD countries

Awareness on the importance of ECEC has grown among policymakers worldwide. In OECD countries, the expansion of provision of pre-primary education (ISCED 02) and targeted measures for children from disadvantaged backgrounds resulted in an increase in enrolment rates, reaching universal or near-universal participation for children aged 3 to 5 in several countries. In most OECD countries, participation is universal or near-universal in the year before primary school entry, which constitutes significant progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals’ education targets. As access to ECEC increases, policymakers are shifting their attention to ensuring the quality of provision for all children. In particular, process quality has been identified as the primary driver for children’s development in ECEC (Melhuish et al., 2015[2]). Process quality refers to the children’s experience of ECEC and includes their interactions with other children, staff, space and materials, their families and the wider community.

Despite the growing recognition of the importance of high-quality ECEC, funding for ECEC has remained lower than for later stages of education. On average in 2019, OECD countries spent 0.87% of gross domestic product (GDP) on ECEC as compared to 1.5% and 1.9% of GDP on primary and secondary education, respectively (OECD, 2021[3]). Actually, in about half of OECD countries, expenditure on children aged 3 to 5 enrolled in ECEC as a percentage of GDP decreased between 2013 and 2017 (OECD, 2020[4]). Furthermore, the proportion of private expenditure is higher in pre-primary education than in primary education. More children are enrolled in private institutions in ECEC than in primary and secondary education, which further highlights differences across stages of education (Figure 1.1).

Figure 1.1. Share of enrolment by type of institution and education level

In addition, the Covid-19 pandemic has created challenges for the continued operation and funding of ECEC services across the world, which highlighted the importance of ECEC in multiple ways. The need of continuing to provide ECEC services to allow parents to go to work became evident, particularly in the case of essential workers. Discussions also revolved around the long-term effects for children that the closure of services may imply. More than at later stages of education, close interactions with educators and peers are essential to provide children with cognitive and emotional support, which can be challenging to ensure through online platforms (OECD, 2021[5]). With the Covid-19 pandemic negatively affecting global health, economy and social welfare, government support will be needed to ensure that children have access to quality ECEC despite the challenging context.

The OECD’s Quality beyond Regulations policy review supports countries and jurisdictions to better understand the different dimensions of quality in ECEC and the policies that can enhance process quality in particular (Box 1.2). The complex nature of quality in ECEC requires multi-faceted policy solutions. The review conceptualises in a framework the linkages between process quality and five high-level policy levers that can be instrumental in building ECEC systems that foster children’s daily experiences: governance, standards and funding; curriculum and pedagogy; workforce development; data and monitoring; and family and community engagement (Figure 1.2).

Figure 1.2. Five policy areas to support high-quality early childhood education and care

Box 1.2. The Quality beyond Regulations project

The Quality beyond Regulations policy review was initiated to support countries and jurisdictions to better understand the different dimensions of quality in early childhood education and care (ECEC), focusing on process quality in particular. The first phase of the project culminated in a literature review and meta-analysis of the links between different dimensions of quality and children’s learning, development and well-being, published under the title Engaging Young Children (OECD, 2018[6]).

The second phase of the project built from this research base to address the overarching question: How can policies enhance process quality and child development and what are good examples of these policies? To address this question, countries in the OECD’s Early Childhood Education and Care Network were invited to share information on relevant policies by completing a questionnaire. Twenty-six countries responded to this invitation, resulting in a rich database of information on ECEC systems around the world and their efforts to promote high-quality ECEC as of the year 2019.

In addition, six countries (Australia, Canada, Ireland, Japan, Luxembourg and Switzerland) participated in the Quality beyond Regulations project by completing in-depth country background reports. These reports were undertaken by national governments, as well as provincial governments in the case of Canada. The reports were based on a common framework developed by the OECD to facilitate comparative analysis and maximise the opportunities for countries and jurisdictions to learn from each other. The country background reports were complementary to the information collected in the policy questionnaire. Together, these two sources provided the data for the main analyses of the review.

The project culminated in the publication of the report Starting Strong VI: Supporting Meaningful Interactions in Early Childhood Education and Care. In addition, a multidimensional map of policy levers for quality in ECEC was published on an online platform, making available the breadth and depth of policy information that underpins the findings of the publication.

Note: The report has been published under OECD (2021), Starting Strong VI: Supporting Meaningful Interactions in Early Childhood Education and Care, Starting Strong, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/f47a06ae-en. The online platform is accessible at the website: https://quality ecec.oecd.org.

A specific country review of early childhood education and care in Ireland

As part of the Quality beyond Regulations policy review, this specific country policy review focuses on the quality of ECEC in Ireland, in particular on policies that can support process quality. Building on the five policy levers of the Quality beyond Regulations policy framework (Figure 1.2), the present review puts a specific emphasis on aspects related to 1) workforce development (including the governance context, working conditions and staff preparation for curriculum implementation) and 2) quality assurance and improvement (including the institutional set-up for monitoring implementation of the national curriculum framework). Equity and diversity are included as a cross-cutting dimension.

The scope of the review focuses on all registered, licensed or otherwise regulated ECEC settings. ECEC typically refers to all regulated settings under ISCED Level 0 serving children between 0 and 5 or 6 years old (see Box 1.3). While the focus of the review is on ISCED 0 settings (typically children aged 0 to 5 in Ireland), it also discusses the mainly unregulated childminding sector as the government has plans to reform it. Furthermore, ISCED 1 settings (primary education) targeting children younger than 6 years old are also considered where applicable, in particular when relevant for supporting transitions across the two levels.

The review is based on a mixed method design and uses a combination of both quantitative and qualitative analysis, drawing on both national and international data and evidence. The review process entails the preparation of a country background report (CBR) (see Frontier Economics (2021[7])). This report consists of a self-assessment commissioned by the Irish authorities following the review’s conceptual framework and detailed guidelines from the OECD. Unless otherwise noted, information on the Irish ECEC system included in this report is drawn from the CBR. The CBR and this report complement each other and can be read in conjunction for a more comprehensive view of the Irish ECEC system.

The review was undertaken by an OECD-led review team providing an independent analysis of ECEC policies in the country. The OECD review team was comprised of Stéphanie Jamet (Head of the OECD team for Early Childhood Education and Care), Thomas Radinger (OECD), Victoria Liberatore (OECD) and William Maxwell (independent educational consultant). The review team engaged in two dedicated missions between December 2020 and September 2021 to collect a broad cross-section of evidence and views on ECEC policies from key stakeholder groups in Ireland. This included a fact-finding mission and a main policy mission (which was conducted in two rounds). In the context of travel restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic, all missions took place virtually via video-conference. For a detailed description of the schedule of each mission, readers should refer to Annex A.

Each mission entailed a series of semi-structured interviews with a wide range of education stakeholders, including those in government departments, national agencies, local actors, inspectorates, training providers, non-governmental organisations, providers of ECEC services, workforce representatives, researchers and others. The OECD review team also spoke to ECEC setting leaders, staff (room leaders and assistants) and parents from four centres, as well as an independent childminder. The settings were proposed by Better Start, following OECD guidance with the aim to maximise diversity in terms of setting types (e.g. type of provider, size and socio-economic composition). Online visits to settings also included a self-recorded video to give the review team a fuller impression of the setting. Each meeting contributed to the review team’s understanding of ECEC in Ireland and the role of different actors.

The missions were designed by the OECD in collaboration with the Irish authorities. The co-ordination of the work within Ireland was undertaken by the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (DCEDIY), in collaboration with an Oversight Group formed to accompany the work of the review and involving other government actors with a remit in ECEC.

The review was organised with the support of the European Commission (EC), which co-financed the review in the context of a broader partnership established between the OECD and the EC for the project. A representative of the EC participated as an observer of the review’s visits (Sylwia Sitka, Policy Officer for Ireland from the EC’s Directorate-General for Education, Youth, Sport and Culture [DG EAC]). The EC was not involved in the drafting of this report and views expressed herein can in no way be taken to reflect the official opinion of the European Union.

Structure and scope of the report

The review aims to identify strengths, challenges and policy recommendations with a particular focus in the areas of workforce development, and quality assurance and improvement, including monitoring and inspection. In addition to this introductory chapter, this report includes two thematic chapters on the two main areas of the review, and a summary of the assessment and recommendations.

The scope of the review does not directly include issues related to access and funding of ECEC; however, these are considered the framework conditions and starting point for the two main areas of analysis. As such, they are discussed as context to the review in Chapter 1. Other structural issues related to ECEC provision, such as the large unregulated childminding sector or differences in provision for children aged 0 to 3 and children aged 3 to 5 are addressed more directly in the review and individual thematic chapters as they relate to and are shaped by quality assurance and improvement and workforce development policies.

Monitoring and inspection, and workforce development are powerful policy levers that can help drive improvement in the sector. Even in challenging conditions, the quality assurance system is crucial to monitor and improve ECEC provision, and to ensure value for both public and private investments in the early years. The workforce’s preparation and working conditions are key to boost staff practices, which are one of the most proximal factors to the child’s experience of ECEC together with policies around curriculum and pedagogy, also driving children’s learning, development and well-being.

The policy context of the review of early childhood education and care in Ireland

Governance, funding and enrolment

ECEC in Ireland is under the primary responsibility of the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (DCEDIY), working in collaboration with the Department of Education (DE). DCEDIY is responsible for governance and quality; regulation, monitoring and evaluation; funding; and workforce development of all ECEC settings other than those in primary schools, as well as oversight and funding of the national infrastructure of supports for ECEC provision, including supports for quality and inclusion in ECEC services, and research, data and monitoring of the sector. DCEDIY has overall responsibility for implementing the First 5 Whole-of-Government Strategy for Babies, Young Children and their Families (hereafter referred to as “First 5”). The First 5 strategy includes the government’s long-term plan for ECEC, which focuses specifically on the first five years of a child’s life and sets targets to improve the systems and supports available to children and their families.

The Department of Education collaborates with DCEDIY (through its Early Years Policy Unit), particularly in the areas of quality, workforce development and curriculum, as well as disability. More specifically, DE is responsible for 40 Early Start pre-schools, specialised in pre-school provision for children with diagnosed special educational needs, conducting education-focused ECEC inspections and curriculum development. The DE also has responsibilities in the setting of standards for further and higher education programmes for ECEC staff in conjunction with the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research Innovation and Science.

In the last decades, Ireland has reached important achievements in terms of children’s enrolment in ECEC. The participation of children aged 3 to 5 in ECEC and primary education was nearly universal in 2019, placing Ireland among the leading countries in enrolment rates for this age group (Figure 1.3). Among this age group, 40% of children attend primary school, as parents have the choice to enrol them either in ECEC or in primary education (junior infant classes) from the age of 4. A minority of children under age 3 (25%) were enrolled in ECEC in 2019, the same as the OECD average for this age group (Figure 1.4). However, Irish children spend less time in ECEC than those in other countries of the European Union (EU). The average number of weekly hours spent in ECEC for children above age 3 is 25.5 hours, as compared to the EU average of 29.5 hours. For children below age 3, it is 22.6 hours, while the EU average is 27.4 (European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice, 2019[8]).

Figure 1.3. Enrolment rates in early childhood education and care services and primary education, age 3 to 5

Figure 1.4. Enrolment rates of children under age 3 in early childhood education and care, by type of service

Expenditure in ECEC in Ireland remains relatively low, despite an increase in public funding over the past years. Annual expenditure per child in ECEC (ISCED 0) in 2019 in Ireland was well below the OECD average (USD 4.439 as compared to USD 10.118, converted using purchasing power parity-PPP) (Figure 1.5) (OECD, 2021[3]). According to OECD data, expenditure on ECEC in Ireland (public and private) represented 0.2% of GDP in 2019, which is the lowest share across OECD countries. However, these data should be interpreted with caution since the GDP indicator for Ireland may be upwardly distorted in regards to underlying economic activity, as noted by OECD (2018[9]); and since primary education starts at a relatively early age in Ireland, meaning ECEC spending covers a relatively small age range of children.

Figure 1.5. Annual expenditure per child in early childhood education and care (ISCED 0)

In Ireland, ECEC services are offered by private providers, including chains, large structures and small structures (Box 1.3). National sources show that in 2019, 74% of the country’s centre-based settings were for-profit (privately managed) and the remaining were non-profit community providers (typically overseen by a board of management that can include parents). In 2019, all children in Ireland were enrolled in private institutions. Ireland is therefore only one of five OECD countries (Australia, Ireland, Japan, Korea and New Zealand) in which more than three-quarters of children attending pre-primary level (ISCED 02) were enrolled in private institutions (OECD, 2021[3]). In the last eight years, the number of private for-profit providers increased by 11%, while the number of community providers remained constant (Pobal, 2021[10]). The slower growth in community provision in recent years is largely explained by a lack of large scale capital funding to succeed funding schemes available previously. Community services are also more likely to be located in disadvantaged areas, as compared to private for-profit providers.

Box 1.3. Types of ECEC settings in Ireland

The provision of ECEC in Ireland involves both centre-based and home-based settings, with a multiplicity of types of centre-based settings, including day care, pre-school provision and breakfast clubs, as well as some specific settings in disadvantaged regions, targeting disadvantaged children (both community-based ECEC settings and a small number of Early Start settings in schools) and early intervention classes in schools for young children with autism spectrum disorder. Other regulated settings include drop-in centres.

Some centre-based settings, such as day nurseries and crèches, provide full-time day care (i.e. more than 5 hours service per day). Part-time day care includes structured services that offer more than 3.5 hours and less than 5 hours per day. Sessional services, which consist of structured programmes offering ECEC for up to 3.5 hours per session (e.g. a morning or an afternoon), are also available. Structures offering sessional services include playgroups, crèches, Montessori groups, the Early Start programme, playschools and Naíonraí (nursery schools or playschools operating through Irish medium). ECEC centres may furthermore offer school-age childcare (SAC) that is after school care, in addition to early childhood education and care.

Home-based ECEC is largely unregulated and there is limited information on the size of the sector. National sources estimate that in 2016, 13% of pre-school aged children where cared for by a childminder, au pair or nanny. Only a small minority (estimated at less than 1%) of childminders are registered. Childminders care for children at their own home, and their services may be offered full-time or for specific hours during the day, depending of the conditions negotiated with parents. Only childminders caring for more than three pre-school aged children (or more than six children of any age) have to register with Tusla (the Child and Family Agency) and are covered by regulations under the Child Care Act 1991. In line with the National Action Plan for Childminding, Ireland is currently implementing strategies to extend regulation and support for childminders.

Several funding schemes and targeted programmes are in place, but efforts are needed to ensure that they foster quality for children of all ages and backgrounds

In the last two decades, Ireland has put in place several funding schemes to support all children’s participation in ECEC. In the 2019/2020 programme year, DCEDIY had contracted a total of 4 690 settings to provide at least one of the existing funding programmes, including the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) programme and the National Childcare Scheme (NCS). The ECCE programme, introduced in 2010 and expanded in 2016 and 2018 ensures universal access to ECEC to children in the two years before starting primary school. This subsidy covers fully funded ECEC for 15 hours per week over 38 weeks of the year to all children from age 2 years and 8 months. In the 2019/2020 programme year, 105 975 children benefitted from this programme (Pobal, 2021[10]). In this programme, the government pays a capitation fee to participating ECEC settings, who in turn provide a pre-school service free of charge to all eligible children. The programme also provides settings with additional funding, and thus a higher capitation payment, for each room leader (i.e. teacher) that holds a degree at ISCED 6 level or above.

The NCS was introduced in 2019 and provides universal and targeted subsidies for families depending on parents’ income and other circumstances. This subsidy covers hours in addition to the ECCE programme (in ECEC and care for school-aged children) and is given to providers, who in turn reduce fees for parents. Participation in the scheme is open for all registered providers. It therefore currently excludes the vast majority of the childminding sector, which raises the importance of further regulating this sector. The NCS was designed to replace and streamline previous targeted programmes. At the time of writing, a number of these legacy schemes, such as the Community Childcare Subvention Plus, were still in place.

In addition, several targeted programmes aim at ensuring equity and diversity in ECEC. The Access and Inclusion Model (AIM) has been established to create a more inclusive environment in ECEC settings, providing different levels of universal and targeted support for children in ECCE rooms to centres in response to children’s needs and the specific pre-school context. Support under AIM includes advice and mentoring from specialists, specialised equipment and funding for additional assistance where needed. This programme is a child-centred model designed to enable full participation in ECEC for children with special needs or disabilities, and builds on the Irish Diversity, Equality and Inclusion Charter and Guidelines for ECEC (DCYA, 2016[11]). Moreover, the Early Start programme, managed by the Department of Education, offers one year of free ECEC in 40 primary schools in disadvantaged areas to children aged three to five.

The administration around some funding schemes has created difficulties for beneficiaries. The NCS is perceived by stakeholders as a complex system, which demands time and skills from parents in order to apply. This can be a barrier for parents with low literacy and digital literacy competences. It would be important to simplify the procedure for applying to the NCS, as well as provide parents with support in doing so, e.g. through local institutions to ensure that all families are able to request the financial support.

The NCS is more generous for parents who work or take part in education or training, in recognition of the importance of parental labour market participation for combating child poverty, which was less the case with the previous schemes. The Government recently completed a review of the NCS and committed to some reforms to the scheme in the announced budget for 2022, communicated in October 2021. These reforms include a change in the practice of deducting hours spent in pre-school or school from NCS subsidised hours, which will increase subsidised hours. As a result, children whose eligible parents are not employed or studying will be able to benefit from full-time ECEC if they are enrolled in the ECCE programme or to part-time subsidised ECEC if they are not. Children whose eligible parents are employed would be entitled to full-time subsidised ECEC. Continued evaluation of the scheme according to its monitoring plan would allow for better awareness of whether the NCS is meeting the needs of families, and could inform further improvements. For example, monitoring would inform whether the parameters of the scheme need to be adjusted to ensure that it fully supports the enrolment of children from disadvantaged backgrounds in ECEC, including at an early age, independently from the labour market situation of their parents.

Furthermore, the ECCE programme appears to have created a fragmentation within the system of ECEC provision. The financial incentives within this programme seem to have pushed providers to focus on offering services to children in the ECCE age group, to the detriment of children under age 3. The higher capitation payment, attracts the most qualified and experienced staff to ECCE rooms. Although child-staff ratios are lower, rooms for children under age 3 often have less experience and lower qualified staff. The monitoring of the ECCE programme by the DE Inspectorate in addition to Tusla inspection creates an asymmetry in quality requirements between ECCE programmes and those for younger children (see Chapter 3). The introduction of the ECCE programme also created overlapping with junior infant classes in primary school and with Early Start rooms (although only a small percentage of children are enrolled in Early Start settings). Overcoming the duality between ECCE and non-ECCE provision is fundamental to reach more homogenous quality outcomes in the sector. Some strategies that can be helpful include increasing funding for younger children, aligning incentives to attract qualified staff and extending education-focused inspections into non-ECCE programmes. The government has committed to pilot education-focused inspections in programmes (or rooms) for children under the age of 3 and announced in the budget for 2022 that a higher level of funding will be available to the provision of ECEC for the youngest children to account for additional costs coming from higher staff ratio requirements.

In terms of inclusion objectives, AIM has been welcomed as an initiative to facilitate the integration of children with a disability into ECEC. The programme has reached 5 708 children in 2019/20 through targeted support (Pobal, 2021[10]) in addition to thousands more through universal support as all children in the room benefit from additional specialised staff. However, further efforts are needed to ensure that no eligible children are being left out of AIM supports. ECEC staff could be trained to have a role in helping identify children’s need for AIM, supporting the formal assessment conducted by specialists from Better Start, a quality development agency. The need for further specialised expertise (e.g. provided through multidisciplinary teams or local/regional hubs) could also be assessed.

Stakeholders appear to demand further efforts in addressing other sources of disadvantage in ECEC, in particular concerning the inclusion of children from Traveller and Roma communities. National data show that 18% of ECEC services report at least one Traveller child attending, and 9% of settings report having at least one Roma children attending (Pobal, 2021[10]). ECEC staff would benefit from more knowledge and training on the specific needs of children from Traveller and Roma communities (e.g. adapting support to the months of the year when children from nomadic communities attend ECEC, facilitating transitions to primary school for these children). As committed to in the First 5 strategy, building connections and learning from initiatives in tackling disadvantage from the school system could facilitate the transitions of children with disadvantages from ECEC to primary education and ensure that these children are overall better integrated in the education system from the beginning. An expert group is currently working on developing a model for the sector informed by an initiative from the school system, the Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools programme.

The market-driven nature of the sector calls for strategies to ensure affordability and quality of ECEC

Several complexities arise from the nature of the model of provision and funding. The market-driven nature of the sector, where most private providers are for-profit, makes it difficult for the government to influence working conditions in the sector and to ensure that public funding is linked to quality outcomes, as analysed more in detail in Chapter 2 and 3. The current model of provision and the low level of public funding result in low wages and precarious working conditions for staff (with part of them working part-time and on temporary contracts), causing high turnover in the sector. In particular, this creates significant differences with primary education, which is a fully public system offering better working conditions.

Moreover, in the current model ECEC providers decide on the level of parental fees (outside of the ECCE programme, which is free to parents). Among OECD countries, Ireland has one of the highest levels of childcare costs for parents (Figure 1.6). Another challenge is to ensure that the offer of ECEC services matches the actual demand, as private providers tend to concentrate on the services where they can make bigger profits. Financial incentives also tend to create unintended consequences on the offer of services. For example, the ECCE programme created incentives to increase places for children aged 3 to 5, at the expense of places for children under age 3. In order to better serve parents’ and communities’ needs in the current systems, mechanisms need to be set to monitor, forecast and steer supply in response to demand for services, including in home-based settings.

Figure 1.6. Childcare costs for parents in OECD countries

A substantive increase in public funding is needed to make ECEC more affordable for families and to strengthen the workforce. Some stakeholders demand a progression towards a fully publicly funded and managed system. This is advanced by several social partners such as Children’s Rights Alliance, the Services, Industrial, Professional and Technical Union (SIPTU), and the National Women’s Council among others, as well as by the INFORM group of experts in ECEC (Children's Rights Alliance, 2021[13]; Citizen's Assembly on Gender Equality, 2021[14]).

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the sector has become more extensively publicly funded as the government has supported the operation and funding of ECEC settings. The increase in public funding during the pandemic has been widely welcomed, and has set a precedent in moving towards more governmental involvement in the sector. Government’s support included the Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme and the Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme, as well as commercial rates waiver and a range of grants (i.e. Reopening Support Grant, Covid-19 Capital Grant, Restart Grant and Playing Outdoors Grant). According to national sources, total public funding provided to the sector in 2020 (including additional COVID-19 funding), meant an increase in public funding of 32%, as compared to 2019.

Ireland is currently developing a new funding model for the sector, which sets out plans for mechanisms for public investment in the sector, including decisions on the level of funding and on the criteria for allocation of funding. Initial features of this model were revealed in the announcement on the budget for 2022, in which the DCEDIY is allocated EUR 716 million for ECEC and school-age childcare (an increase of EUR 78 million). This funding will allow DCEDIY to develop a new core funding stream from September 2022 for approximately 4 700 providers amounting to EUR 69 million from September 2022 and EUR 207.3 million in 2023. If recent trends in public investment and commitments in announced budget for 2022 were maintained over the longer term, Ireland would be making progress in catching up with OECD averages in future years.

In the current market-driven model, though, mechanisms need to be put in place to ensure that higher funding translates into higher quality instead of higher profits, which is inevitably complicated when provision is privately managed. Until recently, the government lacked means to ensure that public funding served to attract and retain qualified staff in ECEC. While higher capitation payments are allocated to providers who hire more qualified staff in ECCE programmes, there is currently no mechanism to ensure that this additional funding is passed to the staff member (see Chapter 2). Outside the ECCE programme, which is fully funded by the government and free for parents, there are also no regulations to cap parental fees.

Initial features of the new funding model include mechanisms to ensure that public funding for the sector translates into enhanced quality with unchanged parental fees. The additional funding is conditional on reaching an agreement between representatives of trade unions and employer organisations on an Employment Regulation Order that will set working condition standards for the sector. The new core funding scheme also includes a commitment by providers to freeze fees as a condition to benefit from the new core funding scheme.

Efforts are also in place to ensure greater transparency and predictability of public funding in the sector. While a late announcement on the continuation of COVID-19 related support packages in Autumn 2021 created uncertainties in the beginning of the 2021 school year for ECEC providers (as well as for other sectors benefitting from these supports across the whole economy), as part of Budget 2022, government has confirmed COVID-19 supports for the ECEC sector will remain in place until April 2022. In addition, a transition fund has also been confirmed to operate between April 2022 and the introduction of a new core funding scheme in September 2022.

The complexity of the governance and organisation of provision of ECEC requires enhanced co-ordination efforts

In addition to the involvement of two government departments, multiple other actors are also involved in the governance of ECEC provision, some with overlapping functions. In this context, and with a growing number of agencies involved in the governance of the sector, several initiatives are in place to promote collaboration between stakeholders. For example, arrangements have been put in place to promote co-ordination of inspections through the high-level Operations and Systems Alignment Group led by the DCEDIY.

Another example of arrangements to foster co-operation among stakeholders is the National Síolta Aistear Initiative (NSAI), which was established in 2016 to support the nationally co-ordinated roll-out of Síolta and Aistear, the national quality and curriculum frameworks for ECEC. The NSAI is led by DE, in collaboration with DCEDIY, who fund the initiative, as well as the Better Start Quality Development Service and the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA). NCCA is the statutory body that advises the Government on curriculum and assessment issues in ECEC, primary and post-primary education.

Síolta, the National Quality Framework for Early Childhood Education, established in 2006, sets principles and standards for quality in ECEC and aims to assist ECEC staff and other stakeholders in supporting children’s development, also providing guidance for self-reflection. Aistear, the Early Childhood Curriculum Framework introduced in 2009 is addressed to all children from birth to 6 years old in ECEC and primary school. Some children aged 4 and most children aged 5 and 6 who are enrolled in primary education are mainly covered by the primary education curriculum. Both curriculum frameworks, for ECEC and primary school, are currently under review. The ECEC quality and curriculum frameworks provide a strong basis for defining a high-quality child-centred approach in ECEC but their impact appears to have been relatively limited across the sector as a whole as they are implemented to different degrees. The apparent overlapping across several co-existing frameworks has been a challenge for ECEC staff to accurately understand their complementarity. As committed to in First 5, the government is working towards the development of a single self-evaluation framework.

The monitoring of ECEC settings and programmes is split across several institutions (see Chapter 3): 1) Tusla, a government agency, assesses regulatory compliance across a range of areas for all registered providers and performs registration; 2) the DE Inspectorate conducts education-focused inspections of the publicly funded ECCE programme; 3) Pobal, another government-funded agency, monitors administrative and financial information. Structural quality standards are set in regulations under the Child Care Act 1991 (Early Years Services) Regulations 2016. Detailed guidance on how the regulations are to be interpreted is presented in the Tusla Early Years Inspectorate’s Quality and Regulatory Framework.

Several actors are involved in providing support for quality improvement including Better Start (which is part of Pobal) as well as City and County Childcare Committees (CCCs), National Voluntary Childcare Organisations (NVCOs) and independent providers. Better Start provides a range of individual service mentoring, coaching and training programmes including on the quality and curriculum frameworks (Síolta and Aistear). There are 30 CCCs in Ireland, established in 2001 to encourage the development of ECEC locally. Funded by the DCEDIY through Pobal, and led by individual boards of management, their functions depend on each local implementation plan for the CCC. Locally, the CCCs often participate in the Children and Young People's Services Committees which seek to help ensure effective co-ordination of a wide range of services for children at county level. The functions of the CCCs typically include providing professional development trainings and mentoring, as well as information for parents and settings regarding funding schemes and meeting regulations. There are also seven NVCOs, which perform functions on behalf of DCEDIY, including providing training programmes and others, such as background checks on staff.

The government has made efforts to implement a participatory approach to include the view of different stakeholders on the sector. Several consultations have been undertaken in the last decade to inform policy design and reform. An example of this are the consultations conducted to inform the design and review of the Aistear curriculum framework (“Updating Aistear”), led by the NCCA (2021[15]). Another initiative has been the establishment in 2016 of the Early Learning and Childcare Stakeholder forum, which enables consultation and engagement between DCEDIY, DE, state agencies and key representatives of the sector. The reform processes on workforce development and funding have also involved extensive collaboration with stakeholders and public consultation. Work on preparation of the Workforce Development Plan has involved international collaboration, through both European Union and OECD networks. Public consultation on both the new funding model and the Workforce Development Plan took place in 2020, while a number of stakeholder working groups worked intensively in 2021 on detailed proposals for the Workforce Development Plan.

With a multiplicity of actors, frameworks and overlapping functions, the governance of the sector remains complex. Despite arrangements to promote collaboration between agencies and stakeholders, the lack of co-ordination in some important matters (e.g. monitoring and inspection, quality support) may undermine efforts to raise quality in the long term. Stakeholders describe the ECEC system as “fragmented” and “little aligned”, with a history of having been developed in a “piecemeal fashion”. Streamlining the activities of the range of institutions engaged in inspection and regulatory activity should be a priority going forward (see Chapter 3).

Better co-ordination of the quality support system will also be crucial to ensure a systematic approach to staff’s professional development (see Chapters 2 and 3). With the creation of Better Start, the activities of CCCs (and the NVCOs) have been changing to more administrative tasks, and less provision of quality support, as compared to before. Funding levels for CCCs have also apparently remained unchanged over time. Given that the CCCs have autonomy and operate independently from each other, there appear to be important differences in the quality of the service that each of them provides, as well as work duplication, even if a statement of work and objectives set by the DCEDIY ensure some consistency. In particular, it can be beneficial to explore the possibility of strengthening CCC’s role to provide a ‘middle layer’ in the quality assurance system (see Chapter 3). To ensure a consistent and more efficient service in CCCs across the country, it might be helpful to rationalise their functions at the regional level and to more clearly define their roles in relation to other quality support organisations.

Despite the government’s efforts to implement a participatory approach, there is a feeling in the sector that policy is still designed in a top-down approach and that stakeholders’ views have not been considered enough in policy initiatives for the sector. This might be a sign that consultations have not been inclusive enough, that not all relevant topics have been included, and that results of consultations have not always been taken into account when designing and implementing policies. A system where many actors with different perspectives co-exist, given the complexity of the governance and organisation of ECEC provision, requires particular efforts to include all voices in the process of decision making. Continuing to include the voice of parents and children is also important.

Ireland has an ambitious policy agenda to reform ECEC

Ireland has recently initiated a series of reforms to further support the quality of ECEC. Its policy agenda for the sector is steered by First 5, a ten-year, whole-of-government strategy published in 2018 to improve access, affordability and quality of ECEC for all babies, young children and their families (see Box 1.4). Through First 5, the government has brought together different stakeholders in the sector through a participatory approach (e.g. the Early Learning and Childcare Stakeholder Forum) (Government of Ireland, 2019[16]). In the context of a complex governance system, this strategy can be useful to consolidate a national vision for the sector and foster higher quality.

Ireland is currently undertaking a comprehensive review of the operating model. As committed to by the government, efforts are being made to reform the current operating model to strengthen co-ordination and coherence with the aim of expanding high-quality ECEC, best practice and innovation, and professional development in all settings, along with developing career paths for ECEC staff. If a central agency is developed, such as the provisionally titled Childcare Ireland, it can help to steer policies and build coherence in the sector as long as its role and its relation to other bodies in the system are clearly defined.

The commitments of the Government in the First 5 strategy have wide support among stakeholders. It has committed to increase public funding in the coming years, and a review of the funding model is currently ongoing, with the objective of improving quality, affordability and accessibility. The Government is also revising the monitoring and inspection system with the aim of strengthening quality assurance. Ensuring that all ECEC settings implement the curriculum framework is also a priority for the Government, which will be crucial in ensuring quality in ECEC.

Another important objective for the Government has been to build a high-quality workforce. A national Workforce Development Plan covering both initial and continuing professional development has been underway since mid-2019 (DCEDIY, 2021[17]). A National Action Plan for Childminding has also been published, as part of a strategy to extend regulation and support for childminders. The action plan has been through public consultation (DCEDIY, 2021[18]).

Box 1.4. Ireland’s First 5 strategy

The Government’s First 5 long-term plan for ECEC focuses specifically on the first five years of a child’s life and sets targets to improve the systems and supports available to babies, young children and their families. First 5 proposes a vision of early childhood education and care, as well a framework for action to ensure that all children have positive early experiences and get a great start in life. The Government’s main commitments for the sector include:

Expanding the National Childcare Scheme (NCS) and progressively increasing the number of families eligible for targeted subsidies.
Progressing towards a graduate-led ECEC workforce.
Developing a new funding model for ECEC to ensure additional public funding can be used to deliver higher quality, more affordable, more sustainable and more inclusive services.
Progressively reforming the sector’s regulatory and inspection systems and strengthening quality assurance with a renewed emphasis on self-evaluation.
Extending regulations and support for childminders and school-age childcare settings.
Developing supports for children’s transitions to, through and from ECEC to primary schools.
Considering the extension of AIM to other age groups or children with additional needs other than a disability or through consolidating wider supports for young children with disabilities, following an evaluation of AIM.
Developing a programme for the delivery of ECEC in the context of concentrated disadvantage, informed by the Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools (DEIS) model in schools.

The Government also published in 2019 the initial First 5 Implementation Plan 2019-2021. The “First 5 Big Steps’’ describe major changes that will be delivered through this strategy:

A broader range of options for parents to balance working and caring.
A new model of parenting support.
New developments in child health, including a dedicated child health workforce.
Reform of the Early Learning and Care (ELC) system, including a new funding model.
A package of measures to tackle early childhood poverty.

Source: Government of Ireland, (2019[16]), First 5: A Whole-of-Government Strategy for Babies, Young Children and their Families 2019-2028

As the policy agenda is ambitious and promising, it is crucial to ensure that public funding is sufficient to meet these goals and allocated in a way that supports quality improvement. As discussed in Chapter 2 and 3, the review of the funding model needs to pay particular attention to the gap in quality and accessibility between ECEC for the youngest children and the ECCE programme for older children. The Workforce Development Plan, the National Action Plan for Childminding, and changes in the inspection system can also help increasing quality of ECEC for the youngest children.

With many reforms under discussion at the same time and many of these reforms being linked, the sequencing of reforms is particularly important. The government should continue to transparently inform all stakeholders on the ongoing processes and implementations of reforms. In particular, it seems important to continue communicating the features of the new funding model to inform implementation of the Workforce Development Plan and the negotiations on working conditions (see Chapter 2). Finally, it is important to monitor the impact of reforms, which requires thinking about evaluations and putting in place some methods at the time of the introduction of new policies or of changes to existing policies.

References

[13] Children’s Rights Alliance (2021), Report Card, Children’s Rights Alliance, Dublin, https://www.childrensrights.ie/sites/default/files/Report-Card-23-Feb-2021.pdf (accessed on 8 October 2021).

[14] Citizen’s Assembly on Gender Equality (2021), Report of the Citizen’s Assembly on Gender Equality, Citizens’ Assembly, Dublin, http://citizensassembly.ie/en/about-the-citizens-assembly/report-of-the-citizens-assembly-on-gender-equality.pdf (accessed on 20 September 2021).

[18] DCEDIY (2021), National Action Plan for Childminding (2021-2028), Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Dublin, https://bit.ly/ChildmindingActionPlan (accessed on 7 September 2021).

[17] DCEDIY (2021), Workforce Development Plan Phase 1 Progress Report, Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Dublin, https://assets.gov.ie/135093/54a31bf1-e9cd-41dc-8362-a64c1456d1f7.pdf (accessed on 8 September 2021).

[11] DCYA (2016), DiversIty, Equality and InclusIon Charter and Guidelines for Early Childhood Education and Care.

[8] European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice (2019), Eurydice Brief: Key data on Early Childhood Education and Care in Europe, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, https://op.europa.eu/s/sMJ1 (accessed on 6 October 2021).

[7] Frontier Economics (2021), OECD Country Background Report for the OECD Quality Beyond Regulations Project – Early Learning and Care in Ireland, Frontier Economics, London, https://assets.gov.ie/138286/2a4c0b9d-e605-4f64-9fa8-a4ae70f7f273.pdf (accessed on 26 August 2021).

[16] Government of Ireland (2019), First 5: A Whole-of-Government Strategy for Babies, Young Children and their Families 2019-2028, https://first5.gov.ie (accessed on 8 September 2021).

[2] Melhuish, E. et al. (2015), A review of research on the effects of early childhood education and care (ECEC) upon child development. WP4.1 Curriculum and quality analysis impact review, CARE, http://ecec-care.org/fileadmin/careproject/Publications/reports/.

[15] NCCA (2021), Updating Aistear: Rationale and Process, National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, Dublin, http://ttps://ncca.ie/media/5053/updating-aistear_rationale-and-process_background-paper_2021.pdf (accessed on 6 October 2021).

[3] OECD (2021), Education at a Glance 2021: OECD Indicators, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://dx.doi.org/10.1787/b35a14e5-en.

[5] OECD (2021), Using Digital Technologies for Early Education during COVID-19: OECD Report for the G20 2020 Education Working Group, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/fe8d68ad-en.

[4] OECD (2020), Education at a Glance 2020: OECD Indicators, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://dx.doi.org/10.1787/69096873-en.

[12] OECD (2020), Is Childcare Affordable?, OECD, http://oe.cd/childcare-brief-202.

[1] OECD (2018), Engaging Young Children: Lessons from Research about Quality in Early Childhood Education and Care, Starting Strong, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264085145-en.

[6] OECD (2018), Engaging Young Children: Lessons from Research about Quality in Early Childhood Education and Care, Starting Strong, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264085145-en.

[9] OECD (2018), OECD Economic Surveys: Ireland 2018, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/eco_surveys-irl-2018-en.

[10] Pobal (2021), Annual Early Years Sector Profile Report 2019/2020, Pobal, Dublin, https://www.gov.ie/pdf/137583/?page=null (accessed on 26 August 2021).

╳

Metadata, Legal and Rights

This document, as well as any data and map included herein, are without prejudice to the status of or sovereignty over any territory, to the delimitation of international frontiers and boundaries and to the name of any territory, city or area. Extracts from publications may be subject to additional disclaimers, which are set out in the complete version of the publication, available at the link provided.

https://doi.org/10.1787/72fab7d1-en

The use of this work, whether digital or print, is governed by the Terms and Conditions to be found at http://www.oecd.org/termsandconditions.