Early years organisations have welcomed comments made by education secretary Charles Clarke about the early years sector.
In his speech at last week's Labour Party conference in Bournemouth, Mr Clarke said there needed to be 'more resources for under-fives, where we know that early intervention can give the greatest benefit for any child'. He added, 'And that is why my personal priority for the use of education resources has to be to strengthen and extend the provision we make for our children.'
Mr Clarke said that at present in England the Government 'invested' an average of about 1,800 per year in the education and care of every three-year-old child. However, it spent an average of 3,200 per year on every primary school-age child, 4,000 per year for every secondary school pupil, 4,300 per year for every young person at college after the age of 16 and 5,300 per year for every university student.
'Whatever else is true of those comparisons, they are not fair,' said Mr Clarke. 'We know that early investment maximises benefit to the child. So given those figures, I can tell you that I intend to give priority to the under-fives and schools where the greatest inequality and unfairness can best be tackled.'
Pat Wills, national chair of Early Education, was delighted by Mr Clarke's remarks. She said, 'This has to be a first. I'm not aware of any education secretary ever accepting that investment has to be made in the early years. In the 80 years of Early Education's existence this has never been said before.
'But we need to see what happens in practice, as the Government has to put more money in and not make cuts to, say, secondary school budgets to fund it. Under-fives need more resources from specialist equipment to higher staff:child ratios.'
Sue Owen, director of the Early Childhood Unit at the National Children's Bureau, said, 'It's wonderful to hear an education secretary showing such a commitment to our traditionally neglected area. However, one reason we spend less on the early years is because early years workers are paid less than schoolteachers and university lecturers.
'The Government must look long and hard at paying more to people working in early years. What Mr Clarke has highlighted is the differential between what we pay to those who care and educate young children and those who educate students.'
Rosemary Murphy, chief executive of the National Day Nurseries Association, said that the education secretary had 'spelt out the imbalance in education funding' and added, 'If early investment gives all children the best start, why are we spending the least on our under-threes? Lifelong differences in educational attainment start to set in before children are two, with those from more deprived backgrounds beginning to fall behind the better off.'
She said we now had 'a strong base of early years and childcare provision that has grown up in response to market forces and operates to some of the highest standards in the world,' adding, 'We hope that Charles Clarke's commitment will be echoed by the Chancellor in the forthcoming spending review.'
