Nursery World - Think-tank questions early years policies

The Government's early years policies have been called into question in a new think-tank report . In the report, Comparing Pre-school Standards, published last week, the group Politiea asked whether the Government's policy of offering nursery education places to all four- and three-year-olds in England was the correct one. The report's authors - Caroline St John Brooks, former editor of Nursery World's sister publication the Times Educational Supplement, Chris Woodhead, the controversial former chief inspector of schools at Ofsted, and Professor Sig Prais of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research - examined evidence from other European countries as well as the United States and Japan, and concluded that Britain's early years policies are out of step.

The Government's early years policies have been called into question in a new think-tank report .

In the report, Comparing Pre-school Standards, published last week, the group Politiea asked whether the Government's policy of offering nursery education places to all four- and three-year-olds in England was the correct one. The report's authors - Caroline St John Brooks, former editor of Nursery World's sister publication the Times Educational Supplement, Chris Woodhead, the controversial former chief inspector of schools at Ofsted, and Professor Sig Prais of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research - examined evidence from other European countries as well as the United States and Japan, and concluded that Britain's early years policies are out of step.

The report said, 'England, Wales and Scotland set five as the compulsory school age, and therefore nursery education takes place at four and three. Most other countries have a later compulsory school age. In the US, New Zealand, France, Germany and Japan, compulsory schooling begins at six. In parts of Switzerland it begins at seven.'

Among the report's recommendations are that the trend towards universal provision for three-year-olds in England and Wales should be reconsidered, and that the policy of attaching nursery or reception classes to primary schools should be stopped. It said, 'As formal a separation should be instituted between pre-school and primary education as exists between primary and secondary. This separation should also apply to funding and direction.'

The report's authors also called for the introduction of a scheme similar to the Conservative government's nursery voucher scheme, which was introduced in England in 1997. They said parents should be given 'an allowance ... to spend on the form of education they judge best for their child, and to encourage different types of proper pre-school provision on continental or other lines'.

But unlike the voucher scheme, which, they said, led to the 'unthinking expansion' of local authority places in primary schools, 'there should be retrenchment. Primary schools are not the place for pre-school-age children.'

Comparing Pre-school Standards costs 10 from Politeia, 22 Charing Cross Road, London WC2H 0QP (020 7240 5070).