Opinion: Childcare providers have been put through the wringer by government policies |
LAST MONTH, A seemingly routine update from the Department of Children landed in the inboxes of childcare providers around Ireland which sought to “clarify” the records providers are meant to keep of staff attendance.
So far so good. Providers fully appreciate the need for accurate, transparent and verifiable records to support compliance while delivering quality early learning and care, and clarity is always helpful.
Tucked in amongst the various requirements, however, was a previously unknown requirement. As well as recording their arrival and departure at their childcare service, educators would now be required to record their every movement between rooms, including when they are asked to jump between rooms on a short-term basis.
It is hard not to question whether the authors of this update have ever observed the daily reality of a quality crèche or preschool. Educators are continuously responding to children’s emotional, physical and developmental needs — comforting a child who is overwhelmed, supporting a toddler learning to regulate emotions, tending to a fall, managing illness, or guiding emerging social skills.
These movements are often brief and unpredictable — and essential to maintaining safe, responsive and high-quality early learning and care environments.
I’m certain that most parents, if asked, would be clear about where they want educators’ attention to be – it’s on caring and educating the children who were entrusted into their care, rather than focusing on recording their every movement on an attendance sheet.
Such micromanagement could be accepted if it was just an isolated example of departmental miscalculation. But sadly, the edict was just the latest in a now, well-established pattern of the department’s failure to understand the enormous pressure it is putting........