Showing papers by "Helen Penn published in 2007"

Childcare Market Management: how the United Kingdom Government has reshaped its role in developing early childhood education and care

Abstract: This article reviews early education and care policies in the United Kingdom since 1997, when a Labour Government came to power, and sets them in the wider context of international changes. It argues that the Labour Government has, by intention and by default, supported the development of private sector, and especially corporate sector childcare. Corporate childcare has increased sevenfold in the period. The rapid scale of these changes has been ignored, or uncritically accepted, by most commentators. However, the Government's childcare policies have not had the anticipated result of increasing the numbers of mothers in the workforce, with the result that there is considerable oversupply of childcare provision. As a result, the private sector has experienced turmoil, as occupancy rates have fallen to an average of 77%, and the sector has become unprofitable. Within 2005-06 many nurseries closed, and there has been a consolidation of the remainder of the market. The private sector is now actively lobbying for more subsidies and a relaxation of regulations. The article concludes that, despite recent difficulties, trends towards private sector growth will continue and that research is urgently needed to investigate and document the changes. Background Neo-liberal governments have, on the face of it, no reason to support early education or childcare. For governments concerned to curb or minimise the role of the state, the domestic lives of individuals and the arrangements families make for the care of their children are typically outside the domain of government intervention, apart from exhortatory statements about the importance of family life. Only in the case of gross breakdown of family functioning does the state see itself as having any obligation to intervene when children are young. This was the view of the Thatcherite Government in the United Kingdom, 1979-87, and is, with variations, the current view of governments in Canada, the USA and Australia (Mahon, 2005). The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which acts as a source of transnational policy knowledge and construction for the richest nations, has entered into these debates about early education and care. It has issued a series of reports on early education and care with contradictory views, Starting Strong (2000, 2006) and Babies and Bosses (2003, 2004). Starting Strong II (OECD, 2006), issued by the Education and Training Directorate of the OECD, is based on a review of early education and care services in 20 countries. This review concludes that services for young children have a redistributive function. Government-funded universal early education and care underpins the well-being and equitable educational progress of all young children, whatever their circumstances. Starting Strong II made a series of recommendations about how such a universal system could best be funded and implemented, and cited the Nordic countries in particular as exemplars. It argued that a privatised system of childcare,

Richness or Rigour? A Discussion of Systematic Reviews and Evidence-Based Policy in Early Childhood

Abstract: In this article, the authors report on the experiences of the Early Years Review Group, one of a number of education groups contracted to carry out systematic reviews for the Evidence for Policy and Practice Information and Coordinating (EPPI) Centre in the United Kingdom. The Early Years Review Group has carried out three systematic reviews: one on the impact of integration of care and education in the early years; one on providing support to young children affected by war and armed conflict; and one on the long-term cost benefits of early childhood interventions. Using the evidence from the third review, the authors address the issue of what constitutes useful evidence for policy makers in the field of early childhood and whether certain kinds of evidence are privileged. They conclude that the systematic review process is an independent and useful tool for analysing and critiquing existing studies.