To the point...
Helen Penn
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
This week's columnist Helen Penn says everyone needs to be clear about the kind of childcare they're talking about The one outstanding accomplishment of this Government in respect of childcare has been to commission research on its initiatives and publish the results on the DfES website. Indeed, almost everyone publishes their research on the net. It used to be difficult to get hold of research articles and reports, but now nearly everything is available for downloading.
The one outstanding accomplishment of this Government in respect of childcare has been to commission research on its initiatives and publish the results on the DfES website. Indeed, almost everyone publishes their research on the net. It used to be difficult to get hold of research articles and reports, but now nearly everything is available for downloading.
The problem is that research is so variable in quality. You need a guide to find your way around. Some research reports are well-thought out and accurate. Anything from the Institute of Fiscal Studies - for instance their recent report on child poverty - is always worth reading. The Office of National Statistics and the National Audit Office, while carefully policy-neutral, have excellent, clearly presented data.
On the other hand, the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen), which carries out annual surveys for the DfES on patterns of childcare 'se and staffing, is more conf'sing. This is because it deliberately does not differentiate between different types of childcare, but uses what it calls Tan incl'sive definition. It is never clear in NatCen surveys what exactly they are referring to - which accounts for some of the differences between their findings and those from other surveys.
Should we try to define and distinguish different types of childcare, and conduct research accordingly? One obvious distinction is between non-profit and for-profit childcare, a distinction which is widely 'sed elsewhere, for example in the OECD report Starting Strong. Parents' choices and preferences might appear different in this light.
'sing this distinction, a new picture of the childcare sector would emerge.
It would become evident, for instance, how much the corporate sector has grown, and how it shapes the childcare market - takeovers, mergers and closures are the order of the day. For example, many of the large nursery chains are owned by private equity companies.
Is it wise to have children's centres run by a nursery chain that may be an investment portfolio for an asset-stripping equity company? We need to be clearer about these distinctions between for-profit and non-profit, and what the implications are of choosing to rely on one rather than the other.
Calling them all settings', or any other inclusive definition, unacceptably blurs the issues. Ideally, research should shine a light on these difficult areas.
Helen Penn is professor of early childhood studies at the University of East London
