The children Act 1989 and early childhood services

Abstract

This paper considers the implications of including general and non-welfare day care services for children under 8 years in the Children Act, a mainly welfare measure. Day care services do not benefit from becoming subject to any broad principles contained within the Act. With respect to these particular services, the Act is essentially conservative in its approach and modest in its scope. It perpetuates the status quo, in particular the division in early childhood services between day care and schooling for the under-5s, and does not address a number of contradictions in existing policy, in particular between a free market approach to provision of day care services and regulation of services. The paper concludes that an open policy review of the whole range of early childhood services, with the possibility of new legislation specifically for early childhood services, needs to be considered.

Key Words:

• Children Act
• day care
• early childhood services.