Early years policy: new labor policy - Essay Example

EARLY YEARS POLICY: NEW LABOUR POLICY Introduction Early years include the initial years within which the development of a child’s brain is in its active mode to learn and grow with respect to societal input. Humans are associated with elasticity of their brains from the ages of 5 to 13 years. During this duration, children in schools occupy two major academic cohorts, the early years and the middle years taught within nursery and primary schools. However, while early years are concerned, there is a cut off of five-years with regards to academic policies associated with early years and childcare. In the United Kingdom, the Labor Party came to power in the year 1997 to introduce its policies aimed at rectifying the wonting early years and childcare programs which had downgraded early years’ education and the overall output of the academic sector. Various problems had been identified prior to 1997 and therefore the Labor Party felt it was its agenda and mission to progress development through the introduction of interventional measures to curb these problems. However, the problems are known but the agendas shift from political to segmented social concerns making the actual progression of the government agendas a matter of political strategies to use public funds on matters that do not have a positive outcome to the general public. In this essay, the Labor Party’s Early Education and Childcare policy mission and goals are discussed with regards to the actual problems that face these areas. For example, the focus on early education and childcare puts together three major societal entities whose input to the community is affected by the policy goals and direction. With regards to childcare and early education, providers of care and education in both the public and the private sector has grown to a considerable figure lowering the income allocation of the providers. In addition, mothers at the work place are not allowed enough time to provide the needed motherly support to their children as this task is covered considerably by the care providers. On the other hand, employers are deemed to benefit more from the ever working mothers as the Labor Party’s policy has placed emphasis on childcare and early education. To the employers, childcare involves the payment of premiums to secure early education for the children and therefore employers are required to be part of this scheme. However, while wok leaves are required to ensure that mothers can tend to their children, employers have taken the initiative to have these mothers at work all through to increase their output and organizational benefits within the private sector. With these problems coming after the Labor Party had been inaugurated into power, this essay intends to balance the past with the present in order to identify what progress has been made and what stakes the society and the government need to be worried of. The relevance of this essay is to showcase the differences between the past, pre-1997, and after the Labor party had come to power, post-1997, in terms of policy viability, influence on early education and childcare, impact on female employees, and benefits to employers. In addition, critics’ view on the agendas of the policy makers is briefly included to broaden the analysis of the post-1997 progress. Some of these criticisms, more so positive, come from scholars such as Skinner (2011) who argues that early education and childcare have progressed considerably under the New Labor Policy. Pre-1997 Situation on Policy Matters In the 1970s and the 80s, women’s radical politics led to the increased demands for childcare as women had been segregated from working and therefore the ever-working father figures did not make enough to support the ever changing and challenging family life of both schooling children and the stay-at-home housekeeper wives. Some of the major concepts leading to the segregation of women in offering them jobs was the post-war notions associated with tax and benefits’ distribution, working rights, and the availability of contraceptives (Department for Health and Social Security 1976). In this case, the working rights and the availability of contraceptives were linked together as employers needed more productive employees who comprised of men as they did not conceive unlike their women counterparts. On the other hand, tax and benefits’ distribution was a problem in terms of how the father figure of a nuclear family would possibly support his family, with specificity drawn to childcare. In this case, the women politics had a strong viewpoint to push for developmental psychological conscriptions. Deviance and traditional viewpoint of the stay-at-home mother was a major topic on journals that influenced the attachment theory. The attachment theory was double standardized and therefore affected women in two levels. Firstly, the family level is that women were attached to staying at home and had the mechanisms to shape the lives of their children. Secondly, the work level did not require employees who could not stay at work all through due to factors such as maternity leaves and family-based emergency offs. For the government, the attachment theory was used as a justification to provide limited childcare or doing away with it completely. For these reasons associated with the attachment theory, Segal (2007) argues that women politics had an agenda aimed at driving legal equality and reconciliation of family life and work, coupled with the provision of childcare which would be an enabling factor. In 1997 a number of uneven patches of varying kinds of early education and care services were present (Giddens 1998). The access of children’s services was a function of where they resided. In cities and urban settings, nursery and other children education institutions were available, mostly in part-time modes while coverage for non-urban was very scattered. Center-based childcare was accessible to 1% of the children and this was within the private or voluntary sector. The problems associated with low childcare services within non-urban areas is due to the fact that urbanization of the services was associated with high returns on investment upon which the non-urban areas could not sustain growth and profitability during difficulty financial times. In addition, due to property valuation within the urban and non-urban areas, it is was easier for an investor to breakeven in an environment that had services highly valued than in an environment where such services were under par with the business prospective of the investor. The private sector, unlike the public sector, is driven by the requirements of returns on investment rather than policies implemented by the government. Due to anticipated demand for childcare services, the private sector’s growth is assured as profitability is considered high. In this case, the policies that the government may or may not implement face two levels of criticisms. Firstly, the private sector which provides services on a profit-based approach provides resistance to policies that may have a substantial impact on the marketability of privatized childcare services. Secondly, the trends that have been witnessed before the Labor Party came to power involved public based programs that were patchworks of early education, hence fore, giving no substantial relevance to the users or adherent users of the services. Childcare market management has been dominated by private companies that make up the largest portion of the childcare market share. While the public childcare sector is led by policies that require equity in distribution of these services, the private sector has been on the forefront during the pre-Labor Party government (Dean 2007). This means that regardless of the obvious reasons policies have to be drafted to intervene in the problems of unequal and segmented provision of early education and childcare, the private sector owns the bigger portion of the market and therefore sets the standards. For instance, regardless of the efforts that the Labor Party has pushed forward in reforming early education and childcare, 16 companies own and run 50,000 places (Ling and Buisson 2007). In this case, regardless of whether the childcare and early education sector is blamed for not implementing policies that guarantee best practices and uniformity in the provision of the service to all, it is through the private sector’s influence that such could not be achieved pre-1997. For example, the current progresses that can be associated with more employee turnover in public childcare institutions do not compare with the damage created by the private sector. According to Ling and Buisson (2007), the organized conference by corporate childcare sector listed attendees from investment institutions and banks. The selection of managing directors of these corporate childcare companies takes careful set of steps into the financial management records of potential directors. For example, Nord Anglia Education managing director was recruited from TNT Express UK, a company involved with transport. The take of the private sector and the efforts of the policy makers conflict in a number of issues which, if assessed from both benefits’ and disadvantages’ perspectives drown Skinner’s (2011) rating of considerable progress. EARLY EDUCARTION Sure Start When the Labor Party first came to power, its main agenda was to rectify the patchworks in early education and childcare that had pre-existed prior to 1997. Taking effect in 1998, the Sure Start Local Programs (SSLPs) had involved about 250 initiatives in total to be launched in 20% of the most deprived wards. In 2003, the number of SSLPs was quickly expanded to 524 (Department for Education and Skills 2004). For these programs, it was agreed by authorities that the content would be locally defined. Among the stakeholders of these programs were representatives of the local authority and the voluntary sector guardian/parents, who would offer key services such as home visiting and remote outreach, support on parenting, learning and play opportunities, advice on healthcare, and support for special needs’ parents and children (Doherty et al 2002). In the year 2004, there was a change in the structure of the Sure Start program in that it aimed at creating as many as 3500 Children Centers, at least one in every community in England, sending management of these centers to the local authorities. For every 800 children within a community, one Sure Start Children Center would be enough. Hence fore, the 3500 centers to be put in place were not to be placed geographically; they were rather to be placed where their need was necessary to serve children under the age of four. With regards to the implementation of the Sure Start Program, three phases were established to see the project successful. The first phase took place in 2004-06 erecting 800 children centers in the 20% of the most deprived wards. The second phase took place between 2006 and 2008 upon which 1700 more children centers were put in place in 30% of the most deprived areas with most of the developments starting from scratch. Phase three was completed in 2010 having started in 2008 upon which 1000 more children centers were established to cover the rest of the nation. With background check on how the children centers started unveils Every Child Matters which was published in 2003. With reaction on negligence that led to the abuse and death of 8-year old Victoria Climbe, local authorities were entrusted by ECM with the responsibility of ensuring that services were integrated around the child. From the year 2006, local authorities had to appoint a director for the Children Services to ensure that accountability was guaranteed in providing children centered protection and associated services. With reference to the argument of Eisenstadt (2011), if local authorities were to be entrusted with all services for children, then Sure Start services had to be part of the strategy. Focusing on activities that were putting the lives of children first through the Sure Start Program, the government had a better viewpoint in managing and controlling early education and childcare activities. The introduction of the SSLPs did not have a positive impact in its initial stages with regards to children’s cognitive outcomes. Other early years’ initiatives that emphasized on quality education and care such as Effective Provision of Pre-School Education Project and Early Excellence Centers had been much fruitful. The expectations of the SSLPs was that early education and care would be provided 48 weeks in a year, 5 days in a week, and 8 hours in a day. However, the lack of positive results within the first round of implementation spooked the need for the SSLPs to be restructured (Skinner 2003). The change in approach spooked criticism from scholars and legislators arguing that the roles played by parents and the community were downgraded and that funding was diluted through the increase of local authorities. The focus on childcare resulted to discomfort associated with the original role that was to be played by Sure Start in nurturing and supporting parenting. Norman Glass, the driver of the Sure Start, argued in favor of critics alleging that the agenda on employability had taken over the merit and relevance of Sure Start (Glass 2005). With the critics pointing fingers at the changes that had been incurred, the role played by Sure Start in practice was contradictory to the mission and vision that existed in theory and the actual need for intervention. This means that regardless of the 3500 Children Centers put up in England, early education was taking a leading role while the very reason of childcare was being underplayed. With emphasis and reflection on the role played by the private sector, Sure Start failed in one of its major structural roles, ensuring childcare was delivered to the children in need and the entire four-and-below year old cohort. Hence fore, with reflection on Skinner’s (2011) positive rating of the New Labor Party Policy, Sure Start ‘did’ but failed to ‘deliver’. What Sure Start ‘did’ was fill up the country with Children Centers foe early education but failed to ‘deliver’ childcare to the needy child. CHILDCARE The National Childcare Strategy publication of 1998 has led the Labor Government to be classified as the first administration, since World War II, to recognize the need for the state to provide childcare based-policy (Lewis 2011). With Childcare, three major strategic programs or rather policies were developed; these included the National Childcare Strategy of 1998, the Ten Year Strategy for Children of 2004, and the Childcare Act of 2006. The goals of the three strategic policies were to enable mothers to secure jobs and reduce child poverty and provide children with the opportunity to explore benefits of early education. The aims of the three strategic policies were to deliver a component that would ensure the delivery of quality and affordable childcare able to accomplish both goals at the same time. In theory, the three policies are deliverables that could be accomplished while in practice a distinction of childcare and early education institutions exists. For this case, the practical approaches of delivering childcare as mothers work and early education to expand a child’s exposure can be rated as conflict of the programs (Glass 2005). In addition, the focus on childcare and the consideration of early education require two types of institutions whose goals should be central to either childcare services or provision of early education. Practicality of sending a child to both programs at the same time is very minimal and below achievable limits. Hence fore, the component of connecting a reduction in child poverty by allowing mothers to work conflicts with the need to expose children to early education. In the examination on the progress of childcare policies and programs, funding is not a factor considered in this analysis of the New Labor Policies. In this case, childcare is separated from early education and therefore, a program or policy aimed at providing childcare is rated according to its role in providing childcare alone. In addition, the rollout of the services across England does not necessarily mean improved childcare as a result of government input through policies. Private organizations and companies provide the same services and therefore, the overall rating on childcare is not a function of government policing (Home Office 1999). In addition, the private sector’s output is a measure of standards and targets populations with the abilities to fund for the services. Hence fore, one of the analytical concepts of government’s policing and provision of childcare services is income distribution and marketability of childcare services. Single mothers who must work to provide for their children must place their children under childcare provisional institutes in order to secure the time to work. This conflicts with the need for the children to be exposed to early education raising concerns on whether childcare policies and early education policies can be implemented at the same time to give the desired results. The result of funding childcare policies, National Childcare Strategy of 1998, the Ten Year Strategy for Children of 2004, and the Childcare Act of 2006, is an increase in the number of places available for childcare services at the tune of 300% in 2008 as compared to 1997 (House of Commons 2010). The increase in the number of places available for the provision of childcare was off-set by the reduction in the number of child-minders as witnessed in the first term of the Labor government. The fall in the number of child-minders was as a result of increased opportunities and alternatives of women jobs. In addition, the number of child-minders decreased with respect to increased and tighter regulations that the Labor Government introduced after getting to power (Mooney et al 2001). Contrary to the perspectives considered by the private sector in the childcare and early education market management, the government’s objectives for providing policy options to curb child abuse and negligence was targeting disadvantaged families to enable their access to such services (Hudson et al, 2004). From surveys conducted by researchers and government agencies from parents, it is reported that about 59% of 0-2 year olds accessed non-parental care in the year 2010, with formal paid care constituting about 39%, 33% accessing center-based care, and 7% assessing child-minder and nanny services (Speight et al 2010). The corresponding improvements comparing 2010 and 1997 results show that only 25% of disadvantaged children were able to use formal (funded) childcare services (Butt at al 2007). 2007 to 2010 results show that the increase in the use of formal childcare services comprised of older groups filling up after-class clubs. With consideration to more disadvantaged families, the use of formal childcare services remained low from 2007 to 2010 (Konings 2010). Among households with-out-of-control levels of disadvantage in the year 2010, fifteen percent of 0-2 year olds had access to formal provisions, with 6% acquiring the formal childcare from a day nursery school, as compared to 55% of children coming from less disadvantaged families, with thirty four percent in a day nursery (Speight et al 2010). The analytical results of the childcare policies show that from 1997 to 2010 an increase in employment rates for lone mothers went up by 12% from 45% to 57%. Married and women with no children had a higher employment rate increase from 1997 to 2010 than lone mothers at the tune of threefold. An evaluation of neighborhoods with Neighborhood Nursery Initiative and neighborhoods without Neighborhood Nursery Initiative shows that the latter had less employment rates among women and development was minimal due to lack of sufficient childcare services. Childcare provision was associated with an increase in employment rates at a small level and increased significantly in areas with NNI than in non-NNI areas (La Valle et al, 2007). With regards to the role played by the EYFS framework in inspecting and evaluating the relevance and quality of programs and institutions providing childcare, 16% of providers left the sector due to inadequacies relating to quality and relevance. In this case the introduction of an evaluation body improved the quality and output of the childcare programs (Ofsted 2009). Conclusion Unlike the mayhem and confusion related to Sure Start and its focus on early education rather than childcare, other policies on childcare delivered their goals at a considerable rate. More children were able to join childcare facilities while more mothers were able to secure employment unlike it were reported in 1997. High number of working mothers contributed to a considerable difference with regards to the total household income and child poverty. However, through childcare provision, exposure to child education remained lower as childcare and early education conflicted with regards to the structure of policies and merits of funding them. Regardless of whether Sure Start had a confused start or not, it rolled out services throughout England increasing access to early education. This means that Skinner’s (2011) view of the New Labor Policy is true as it has been supported with evidence in terms of childcare services’ access, increased women employment, and decreased child poverty levels. However, it is recommended that more, in terms of multiple disadvantaged families’ access to childcare, needs to be done as this group comprises of the lowest users of childcare. Reference List Dean, H., 2007. Tipping the Balance: the problematic nature of work–life balance in a low-income neighbourhood, Journal of Social Policy, 36(4), 519-537. Department for Health and Social Security, 1976. Low Cost Day Provision for Under Fives. Papers of a conference held at the Civil Service College, Sunningdale Park, 9-10 January 1976. Department for Education and Skills (DfES), 2004. Annual statistical release: Provision for Children under 5 Years of Age in England. London: DfES. Doherty, G., Friendly, M. & Forer, B., 2002. Childcare by Default or Design. Occasional paper no. 18. 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London: Social Market Foundation. La Valle, I., Clery, E., & Huerta, M.C., 2008. Maternity rights and mothers’ employment decisions. Research report Department for Work and Pensions Research Report No 496 Lewis, J., 2011. From Sure Start to Children’s Centres: An Analysis of Policy Change in English Early Years Programmes. Journal of Social Policy 40, 71. Mooney, A, Moss, P, & Owen, C., 2001. A Survey of Former Childminders. DfES Research Report RR300. Ofsted, 2009. The impact of integrated services on children and their families in Sure Start Children’s Centres. Ofsted, July 2009. Segal, L., 2007. Making Trouble: life and politics. London: Serpent’s Tail. Skinner, C., 2003. Running around in Circles: co-coordinating childcare, education and work. Bristol. Joseph Rowntree Foundation/Policy Press. Skinner, C., 2011. Childcare and early years’, in Bradshaw, J. (ed.) The well-being of children in the UK. 3rd edn. Bristol: Policy Press, pp.213-233. Speight, S., & Smith, R., 2010. Towards universal early years provision: analysis of take-up by disadvantaged families from recent annual childcare surveys, DfE. Department for Education, London. Read More