Free Early Childhood Education: Challenges and Policy Alternatives

The past year has seen increased pressure to expand free early childhood education and care to include all children under the age of 3, in an effort to ease the economic burden on young parents. Taub Center researchers Dr. Carmel Blank and Dr. Sarit Silverman examined the problems and challenges of this issue and propose policy alternatives that are able to assist in solving these issues. This study was conducted under the auspices of the Taub Center Initiative on Early Childhood Development and Inequality, which is generously supported by the Beracha Foundation, the Bernard van Leer Foundation, and Yad Hanadiv.

The researchers feel that even if there is value in universal free early education, in the absence of appropriate infrastructure for quality education and care, the process is likely to have some significant negative effects. In the current situation in early childhood education — both the public system for children ages 3‒6 and the private (under supervision) system for birth to age 3 — increasing the demand will likely lead to low-quality care in the best case and the collapse of the daycare system in the worst case. This is due to the acute manpower shortage, and a lack of appropriate facilities — in particular, those that meet the regulations for safety and physical conditions.

The main challenges

Manpower shortages: There is a serious shortage of educational-care staff for ages birth to three, both in private daycare and in public daycare run by WIZO, Na’amat, and other organizations. In view of Israel’s high fertility rates, demand for educational frameworks is expected to continue to grow in the future and so the shortage is not expected to end. Extending free education to lower ages without a significant increase in worker supply will increase demand and simply worsen the current situation.

Short supply of buildings that meet regulatory code: The shortage of facilities that are suitable for daycare centers has led to a limited supply of daycare centers — much lower than the demand. The unfortunate result is crowded facilities with a high ratio of children to staff — a ratio than falls below the accepted standard in most high-income countries.

Policy alternatives

On the basis of the researcher’s familiarity with the system and following consultations with professionals in the area of early childhood from academia and the field, they came to a number of policy options that may help in solving the issues. They offer short-term and medium- to long-term options.

The policy measures include increasing manpower and improving its quality; improving working conditions and pay for childhood education and care staff; improving the institutional and bureaucratic envelope that unifies childcare, at the local and national level; making daycare accessible for a variety of populations; lengthening maternity leave for parents, at full and partial payment levels. The researchers stress that some of these measures are meant to stabilize the system and are not intended as a substitute for wise planning for the long-term.