OF THE MANY missed opportunities of the Celtic Tiger era, one of the more inexplicable and certainly more unforgivable ones was the failure to move on pre-school education, writes TOM COLLINS

Against this background, the Government’s decision, announced in the recent Budget, to introduce one year’s free pre-school education for all children from next January is as surprising as it is welcome. In the scorched earth of the Irish Education landscape in the post-Celtic Tiger recession, this is one of the few green shoots of hope.

In announcing the decision, the Minister for Children Barry Andrews drew attention to the recent report of the National Competitiveness Council on Education and Training, which stated that “pre-primary education is a key determinant of student performance at all levels of education, as it leads to improvements in student skill levels, motivation and the propensity to learn, which in turn raises the private and social returns from all future investments in their education.”

It is important that this rationale, already developed by the NESF in its report on pre-primary education, is continuously put in the foreground in Education policy- making so that this significant new departure is built upon.

In this regard, it is important to realise that quality education initiatives can sometimes further inequality. This is most obvious, for instance, in the case of the Transition Year. Poorer children, boys in particular, are less likely to do Transition Year. Those who do can expect to get roughly 40 more points in the Leaving than those who do not. It is important therefore that the potential social dividend of free pre-school education is realised and that it redresses the disadvantages with which poorer children start out in education and which persist throughout their lives.

This is most likely to be achieved where the State is an active provider of pre-school education rather than merely enabling it through funding the recipients. This potentially creates a market-driven system. The reliance on the market to provide basic services in areas such as health and education usually means that those who start out weak in the marketplace become weaker. It is desirable that we continue to work towards establishing a State system of universal pre-school provision. Such a system should embrace a diversity of providers each with its own pedagogical and curricular distinctiveness, but within a nationally-agreed framework.

Such a framework has been developed by the NCCA in recent years and will be launched before the start up of the new programme in January. This framework, Aistear, focuses on the holistic developmental needs of the pre-school child and will provide a valuable resource to parents and pre-school teachers as it evolves over the coming years. Hopefully, it will also lessen the likelihood of the year coming to be seen as one of preparing for “big” school. The year should not be seen primarily as preparing for anything in the future, just one of celebrating the now.

Such a celebration should address the concern that children in Ireland are growing up in an increasingly sterile learning environment. This depleted environment offers fewer opportunities to the child to create, explore, imagine or dream. Instead, the child’s life is increasingly passive, prescribed and consumer-driven. This limits the learning opportunities that inevitably arise for the child in the immersion in an ambient learning environment that presents a rich profusion of experiences and opportunities for exploration, negotiation, self-expression and creation. The pre-school child is always ready to embark on an exploration of whole new imaginative worlds.

The challenge to adults is to open up these worlds to them.

Tom Collins is head of education at NUI Maynooth