The government was conscious of the need for more childcare facilities, said Education Minister Louis Galea yesterday during the launch of a campaign promoting such facilities.
The Employment and Training Corporation (ETC), through funds from the EU’s Social Fund, has launched a national awareness campaign on the benefits of quality childcare.
The campaign aims at continuing to raise awareness about the benefits of quality childcare for children, parents, employers and Maltese society in general.
Minister Galea said a working group within the ETC has focused on early childhood education and care and has produced a report with several recommendations for the development of the sector.
The report is now being evaluated within the larger educational reform. Dr Galea said the report recommended that centres needed to be better equipped, have more training and higher qualifications for staff, that there should be a strong licensing and quality assurance mechanism and more information about quality centres.
Dr Galea said that in ensuring a stronger educational base as early as possible, we would be giving our children a head start to their educational voyage and their careers and life in general.
The minister said childcare coincided with providing an opportunity for working parents as well as the all-important age that affected children’s development, as studies have shown. He added that changing family structures were increasing the demand on childcare provision. He gave an assurance that his ministry’s future work, in collaboration with the ETC and the Family and Social Solidarity Ministry would instil more confidence in parents so as to increase participation rates.
Family and Social Solidarity Minister Dolores Cristina illustrated the work of the Social Welfare Standards Department, which is the main regulator in the field. She announced that an inter-ministerial committee is to be set up in the coming weeks to strengthen the collaboration between the major stakeholders and to ensure a better integrated approach in the early childhood education and care sector.
A survey commissioned by the ETC showed that 47 per cent of respondents were not aware of what constituted adequate childcare facilities, while 71 per cent were of the opinion that the public was not well-informed on the benefits of childcare facilities. From the survey, it was also widely agreed that at present, there was a lack of childcare facilities near places of work.
The campaign is to be spread over four months up till June. It will be advertised on the media and ETC will set up a website, while a freephone helpline manned by the Department of Social Welfare Standards will also be launched in the coming weeks. A national conference will be held in April.