CONSERVATIVE PARTY
Good pre-school education delivered by well-trained staff can make a real contribution to a child's life. In those pre-school years, every child needs support to build their cognitive development and social skills.
A great deal has been done to increase the number of pre-school places and that could only be achieved because of the dedication of the early years workforce. Now the challenge is to build on this to ensure the quality of provision is consistent and at the level we know to be beneficial for children.
The evidence shows that sometimes quality can be a concern, especially in the most deprived areas, where we know that pre-school education can make the most difference. A high-quality workforce is critical. Yet only seven per cent of the workforce has had the opportunity to put in place post-secondary qualifications.
We will provide the full funding to employers who take on apprentices who are above the age of 19 and will provide a financial bonus for small and medium-sized enterprises that take on apprentices. We also want apprenticeships to count towards UCAS points for university admission.
Giving early years staff the opportunity to increase their skills is vital and at the heart of the Conservatives' vision.
Maria Miller MP, Shadow Minister for Families
LABOUR
Play-based early years education can help improve the life chances of children. Excellent early years services, staffed by committed, skilled professionals who work well with children and their families are the key ingredients. There has been much research on early years learning, that shows it really can and does make a life-long difference to individual children and to economies, raising skills and decreasing inequality.
Our offer of free, high-quality childcare and nursery education for all threeand four-year-olds and the creation of 3,500 Sure Start Children's Centres is highly significant. It means there is now a nationwide system of provision to build on in the years to come.
All this makes it hard for any future government of a different hue to fly in the face of the evidence and suggest good early years education doesn't matter; this is an important step forward for our country. The real test of a government's commitment is the level of investment.
We are spending a billion pounds a year in this area, and even in these tough times we have said we will sustain this over the next three years, because that's how crucial we think excellent early years provision is for children and families, and for our economy.
Dawn Primarolo MP, Minister of State for Children, Young People and Families
LIBERAL DEMOCRATS
Early years provision is the most important phase of learning - if we get it right at this stage, we know it makes a lifelong difference. It is vital in addressing the shameful and unacceptable gap between the life chances of the most disadvantaged and the most successful in our society.
Children should therefore be given the best opportunities from the outset - we aspire to see 19 months of shared paid parental leave, complemented by up to 20 hours a week free childcare/early learning provision from the age of 18 months.
The quality of the content and delivery of the 20 hours a week provision will be of high importance. This remains our long-term goal.
We believe that an early years framework should continue into Year 1. We need to reclaim early years as birth to seven, and acknowledge that children who do not achieve all the early learning goals when they reach the end of the reception year need the opportunity to continue according to the principles underpinning the framework.
This doesn't mean that children should start school later, it simply means ensuring that their education is appropriate so that all young children have the potential to thrive.
Annette Brooke MP, Shadow Children's Minister
PLAID CYMRU
Giving our children a strong start in life is vital, not only for their own future, but for the future of Wales. Plaid Cymru is committed to an early years curriculum - the Foundation Phase - which emphasises learning through play, and we call for a study into the feasibility of providing every infant school child in Wales with free school meals. We support a National Welsh Medium Education Strategy as every child in Wales has the right to an education in the Welsh language.
Pupils with Special Educational Needs should also have access to provision in Welsh. Plaid Cymru will continue to campaign to end child poverty in Wales by 2020 and will press for a move away from complex and expensive means testing for child-related benefits. We also call for reform of the parental leave system to give greater flexibility and total gender neutrality, and for universal, affordable, high-quality childcare for every family.
SCOTTISH NATIONALIST PARTY
The SNP know that high-quality early education and childcare services are vital in helping our children to develop and grow and in supporting their families to pursue employment, training and education opportunities. That's why working with partners in local government, the SNP Government launched our Early Years Framework which places an emphasis on delivering top-quality play and education services at a local level.
We have also set out to transform teaching in Scotland and ensure the provision of inspiring, engaging teaching for every child and young person with our Curriculum for Excellence which focuses on integrated education for 3- to 18-year-olds. However, under the current funding arrangement which exists between Scotland and the UK Treasury, the ability of the SNP Government to deliver these services depends on the block grant we receive from Westminster. The London parties all plan swingeing cuts to Scotland's budget - not only would this risk a double-dip recession, it will also have a knock-on impact on health and education budgets and, by extension, early years services. Only the SNP are fighting against these cuts. Instead of slashing essential services, the SNP would scrap the wasteful and obscene Trident project - saving £100bn.
Angus MacNeil MP, SNP MP for the Western Isles
SDLP
The SDLP are committed to early years and early intervention. We are focused on better provision for nursery and primary school children as research shows that this is the stage at which vulnerable children start falling behind. Intervention in the early years is the most effective means of improving educational performance and outcomes. We believe that smaller group sizes, higher adult-child ratios, a balanced curriculum and trained staff must be given greater priority by government if our most deprived children are to do well educationally.
Investment in developing integrated care for 0- to six-year-olds with a complete range of services - including breakfast clubs, educational provision, child care, after-school clubs, two years funded pre-school access for those who need it, and children's centres - is the best means of tackling child poverty, disadvantage and underachievement. An increase in funding for Sure Start centres would also go a long way in addressing this problem by bringing high-quality integrated Early Years services to the heart of communities.
The Government has presided over the 0-6 Years strategy for far too long and it is imperative that it is published without further delay.
Mary Bradley, SDLP Spokesperson for Children and Foyle MLA
SINN FEIN
Sinn Fein are in favour of the provision of state-led, universal early childhood education and care, including universal pre-school for threeto five-year-olds and an afterschool childcare system, to be made available to all who need it and funded by general direct and progressive taxation.
We believe in a community-based approach where children attend local creches staffed by local people. We will continue to fight to keep local community creches open and restore core funding to all local community-based creches, to ensure equal access for all who need it to good-quality childcare, ensuring that wealth is not a prerequisite to the availability of childcare.
In order to ensure that we have childcare provision in our communities we are putting a requirement on developers to construct childcare facilities in all new housing developments and transfer these to the ownership of the local authority upon completion. We strongly believe that early education and childcare facilities add to building communities from the earliest years, and will continue to campaign for the provision of childcare places for all.
ULSTER UNIONIST PARTY
The Ulster Unionist Party strongly believes that successful early years education and provision is vital to tackling many of the educational and social problems that the UK currently faces. Giving children and parents the skills and capabilities to develop and get the most out of their education is one of the key ways to tackle social deprivation, poverty and to boost our economy. Government and the voluntary sector must work in a co-ordinated way to deliver early years education to those who need it most.
The Ulster Unionist Party supports the Conservative Party's desire to ensure that those most in need of early help receive more support. We also support the Conservative Party's desire to bring all funding for early intervention and parenting support into one budget, to be overseen by a newly created Early Years Support Team within the Department for Children, Schools and Families.
At a devolved level the Ulster Unionist Party has been calling for the Northern Ireland Executive to publish a cross-departmental Early Years Strategy. We will continue to push for a regional strategy that will better co-ordinate funding, policies and best practice for early years provision in Northern Ireland.
