Invest in kindergarten costs

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty plans to move forward with implementing a full-day kindergarten program by 2015, the Globe and Mail reported Oct. 27.

The $1.5 billion plan to enrol Ontario’s four- and five-year-olds in full-day schooling comes at a time when Ontario’s projected deficit is sitting at nearly $25 billion.

Currently in Ontario, school is not mandatory until Grade 1. But Charles Pascal, the government’s early learning adviser, said children enrolled in full-day schooling before Grade 1 are better off academically and socially than their classmates.

McGuinty cites investment in the younger generation, Canada’s future workforce, as the main reason for the kindergarten change.

Despite the looming deficit, investing in kindergarten programs is worth the high price tag. It’s easy to dismiss early childhood education with claims we won’t see the results for 20 years, but the long-term benefits of developing critical learning skills will eventually make a more productive workforce.

It’s surprising kindergarten isn’t obligatory, since it’s widely documented that the first five years are the most formative in a child’s development. There’s a critical window of development during which children can best master literacy and math skills. Expanding kindergarten to a full-day program would target these abilities at the optimal time.

As Pascal points out, enriched early learning will assist children’s academic development as well as their social skills.

Immersion in an educational environment for a full day will expose Ontario’s children to literacy, social interaction and physical education, rather than the sedentary T.V. time they would likely get at home.

McGuinty’s plan will also lift the burden on parents who have to find and finance childcare in order to work. In an economy where working parents likely have to put in extra hours, full-day kindergarten will be less disruptive to work schedules.

Filling the day’s extra hours with kindergarten, rather than basic childcare, provides a more enriching environment. While childcare might be a lower-cost alternative, teachers can offer a more targeted curriculum than Early Childhood Educators.

A simple cost-benefit analysis might suggest full-day kindergarten is too pricey to be worthwhile right now. But the solutions to social issues are often outside the scope of cost-benefit analyses. Focusing on costs isn’t always the way to move ahead with choices that will benefit the greater good.

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