Free childcare services will be offered to parents who work or study as from next April, in a bid to encourage more women to start or return to employment.

The proposal had been a pre-electoral promise which was included in the 2014 budget.

The original plan was to provide childcare benefits to families where both parents work as well as working single parents, but the government has also opted to cover parents who study, rather than work, whether on a full-time or part-time basis.

The plans were announced at a press conference at the government-owned childcare centre in Vittoriosa, where Education Minister Evarist Bartolo observed that the proportion of pre-kindergarten children who attend childcare centres is the lowest in the EU, at just 19%. He added that it was hoped that the availability of free childcare services would double the number.

There are presently 70 childcare centres across the country, of which 55 are privately-owned.

The government-owned centres will be free of charge to applicants, and €3 per hour will be paid for each child in private centres. Private centres cannot set higher rates, but parents have the option to choose where to send their children, and Mr Bartolo stressed that those who use them would benefit from existing tax credits.

Malta’s childcare centres presently employ around 300 carers, and this number will need to increase to handle the expected influx of children. However, Mr Bartolo pointed out that there was a strong interest in MCAST courses on childcare, and that a considerable number of would-be carers are set to complete their studies this year.

The number of childcare centres itself will not need to increase immediately, according to the minister, as they are presently being underutilised.

Mr Bartolo emphasised that the scheme also had an educational purpose, stressing that the government was definitely not seeking to have parents simply “park” their children at a childcare centre. He noted that centres would have to meet certain standards, and cited research suggesting that children’s experiences in their first years were crucial to their future development.

In his own address, Finance Minister Edward Scicluna noted that the government has allocated €4 million for the provision of free childcare this year, and that this figure is set to go up in the future. But he emphasised that this would be an investment, stating that free childcare was an important part of government’s economic plan, as it would help exploit a greatly underutilised resource: Maltese mothers.

He noted that the number of women in employment has already increased by around 4 percentage points last year, and pointed out that extending childcare benefits to parents who study would help address another economic issue: the need for a skilled workforce.