INVESTING IN early-childhood care and education can produce dramatic long-term benefits in children's lives such as better academic performance, lower crime levels and a more productive workforce, a conference heard yesterday.
Dr Orla Doyle of UCD's school of public health and population science said well-designed early childhood interventions in the US have generated returns to society of up to $17 for each dollar spent.
She said new evidence in the neuroscience field shows that early intervention is crucial as children's brains are more receptive in the first five years of life than at any other stage.
"It is more efficient, both biologically and economically, to get things right the first time than to try to fix them later," she said.
She was speaking at a conference organised by CPLN area partnership - formerly known as the Clondalkin Partnership - on the importance of community childcare and education.
Sweden's former senior adviser on childcare, Barbara Martin Korpi, said the country's system of universal access to pre-school has been developed over 30 years.
She said almost 50 per cent of one-year-olds in Sweden are now enrolled in pre-school or family day care, rising to more than 90 per cent of two- to five-year-olds.
All children in Sweden have a right to pre-school, while costs are set at a maximum fee of 3 per cent of a parent's monthly income.
There is a national curriculum which ensures high standards of education, while aftercare is available in schools for schoolchildren aged between six and 12.
"Women had to fight to secure these gains over the course of several decades, as men were opposed to childcare. It was only in the 1960s, with a strong women's movement, a growing economy and a new generation of politicians, that attitudes began to change," she said.
Yesterday's conference also marked the publication by the CPLN area partnership of a review of community childcare services in Clondalkin.
The report warns that changes to funding threatens to undermine the social mix at these facilities. Under the changes, greater subsidies are available for parents on low incomes and costs are set to rise for other parents.
"Families who are just above the subvention scheme threshold will simply not be able to afford the significantly increased fees which the community childcare services will have to charge in order to be viable and sustainable," the report says.
Recommendations include enhanced subvention for parents just outside the subvention levels; restructuring funding of community childcare; increase public awareness on the value of quality childcare services.