Policy in Action 12 December 2023
Early Years and School Age Care settings should be recognised as sites of migrant integration
Early Childhood Ireland has called for Early Years (EY) and School Age Care (SAC) settings to be recognised as sites of migrant integration and inclusion in its submission to the public consultation to inform a national strategy for migrant integration, published by the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (DCEDIY) in October 2023. It is one of eleven recommendations that Early Childhood Ireland has proposed to create an inclusive culture where all children can flourish and realise their potential in EY and SAC settings.
“Evidence shows that children, especially those who are disadvantaged, who attend early childhood education and care are more likely to succeed, first at school then as adults in the labour market. Early childhood Education and Care (ECEC) is even more important for the children of immigrants, who have weaker ties with the host-country language in early childhood.” (OECD/European Commission , 2023). Investing in Early Years and School Age Care also provides economic benefits to individuals and society.
Research carried out by the Economic and Research Institute[1] found that children of migrant origin, living in Ireland, are less likely to participate in formal Early Years and School Age Care and that this partly reflects other dimensions of disadvantage, such as lower income and less social support.
Early Childhood Ireland believes that Early Years and School Age Care settings can impact on migrant integration in a meaningful and positive way, creating an inclusive society for all.
Our submission recommends the following:
| 1. High-quality Early Years (EY) and School Age Care (SAC) provision must be available to and accessible for all children living in Ireland.
2. Implement a communications campaign to ensure that migrant families are aware of their entitlement to the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) scheme, and of the availability of other support schemes. 3. Give recognition to EY and SAC settings as sites of migrant integration and inclusion and develop the new Migrant Integration strategy with policies and supports for settings to implement inclusive practices for the benefit of all children and their families. 4. The EY & SAC system should explicitly include asylum and refugee children in their planning and budgeting and to fund the expansion of EY & SAC places for these families, where the demand and need exists. 5. Introduce actions to support language-proficiency for non-native EY and SAC educators in both English and Irish, in Early Years and School Age Care settings. 6. A commitment that all educators working with children and their families have the Diversity, Equality and Inclusion Training provided by the County Childcare Committees. 7. Provide national supports and services to EY and SAC educators and care providers to enable them to provide greater integration and higher-quality experiences for migrant children. e.g.,CPD for pre-school educators to nurture culturally and linguistically responsive environments to support refugee and migrant children’s integration. 8. Provide integration programmes to support the inclusion and participation of all children in Early Years (EY) and School Age Care (SAC) settings, for example the use of age-appropriate play – and arts-based multilingual approaches to discrimination prevention. 9. A commitment to collect and publish disaggregated data on migrant children’s participation in EY and SAC settings as a monitoring indicator for the new strategy. The collection of this data may be sourced via the annual Pobal Early Years Sector Profile. 10. Conduct research to: i. gain an enhanced understanding of the remaining barriers to integration in early childhood education and care that migrant children are experiencing compared to Irish-heritage children, ii. explore how the participation rate in Early Years and School Age Care among Ireland’s migrant population could be increased, and iii. to explore service providers’ experience of provision of Early Years and School Age Care to migrant children. 11. To ensure a whole-of-government approach to the new Migrant Integration Strategy, Early Childhood Ireland recommends that the commitments to children and their families in First 5 are taken into consideration. |
[1] Sprong, S. & Skopek, J., 2023. Childcare utilisation by migration background: Evidence from a nationally representative Irish cohort study, s.l.: Economic and Social Research Institute
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You can read the full submission here. If you have any queries about this submission or any other Early Childhood Ireland policy proposals, please contact us at policy@earlychildhoodireland.ie
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