There remains a ‘significant amount of work to be done to give children the best chance of growing up free from poverty in Scotland’, concludes a new report.
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) says that a ‘wait and see approach’ to childcare in Scotland risks leaving thousands of families behind.
Its research argues that in order to ‘poverty proof’ the future of early years education, the Scottish Government should follow through on the First Minister’s commitment and expand funded places to children under the age of three.
Currently in Scotland, children aged three and four are eligible for 1,140 hours of early learning and childcare. Though some two-year-olds are eligible for the offer, plans to expand this entitlement further aren’t included in the Programme for Government, says the JRF. It argues that the need for enhanced childcare is clear, but what’s ‘confusing is the lack of urgency’.
