childcaare

There is a distinctive additional rural component to the challenges identified around this policy in rural areas which is to do with a real lack of supply of childcare provision. The article tells us:

The government’s plan to provide 30 hours’ free childcare has been criticised by a leading global education expert for failing to target the most disadvantaged families whose children stand to gain the most.

Andreas Schleicher, education director of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), welcomed the doubling of the free childcare offer, which he said would bring England up from the bottom of the international league in terms of hours offered to an average position.

But he questioned the government’s decision to target the offer at working parents, who can earn up to £100,000 each and still be eligible, rather than prioritising access for the most deprived families who may not qualify.

From September, three- and four-year-olds of working parents in England will be eligible for 30 hours of government-funded childcare per week. To qualify, each parent – or the sole parent in a single parent family – will need to earn at least the equivalent of 16 hours per week working at the national minimum or living wage.

The Conservative initiative has been widely welcomed by working parents among whom it was a clear vote winner in the 2015 election, but Labour has warned that low-income families in insecure employment or on zero-hours contracts, who may be unable to guarantee how many hours of work they will get from one month to the next, will lose out.