THE GOVERNMENT has been urged at a conference in Co Kerry not to row back on the gains made in early childhood education.
"Despite our reputation as caring and family-oriented, in actual fact up to recently we gravely neglected young children and their development," said Prof John Coolahan, professor of education at NUI Maynooth, and an international expert in the field.
Up to the mid-1960s, one-third of all children finished their education at primary school level, he told the conference of childcare workers and educators organised by the South Kerry Development Partnership in Killarney.
It was only in the late 1990s following Ireland's ratification of the UN Convention on Children's Rights that attitudes towards the education of the very young began to change, said Prof Coolahan.
Over the past eight years there was plenty of research and a build-up of a strong policy and vision for the education of the very young, but there had been very little implementation.
"There has been a paradigm shift in our national attitude towards the education of our very young children. There are gaps, as has been outlined, but we have now a whole range of quality reports as good as anything across the world. The problem is implementation," Prof Coolahan said.
Political and social will was needed to put in place a quality early childhood system of education. One of the biggest gaps right now was between "the formal system" of the primary school and the various agencies such as parents' groups, the HSE, county committees on childcare and so on. These were simply not coming together, he said.
Despite the economic downturn, "we cannot go back", Prof Coolahan said. He severely criticised the recent Budget decision to close the Centre for Early Childhood Care and Development at St Patrick's College, Drumcondra.
A joint venture between the Dublin Institute of Technology and St Patrick's, the centre - costing €1 million a year - had gained an international reputation and great credibility among educators here. "This is a severe blow to us. It's an extraordinary, uneconomic thing to do," Prof Coolahan said.