High-quality early years education can play a vital role in improving children’s development, boosting educational outcomes and reducing the attainment gap between disadvantaged children and their peers. Childcare also gives parents the flexibility and time they need to work, supporting their entry into paid employment, helping to level existing inequalities and boost household productivity and income.
The funded childcare offers for two- to four-year-olds were introduced with this aim in mind. Unfortunately, too many eligible children, especially disadvantaged children, still do not take-up their funded place.
Missed opportunities
According to Department for Education figures, only three-quarters of eligible two-year-olds were accessing the 15 hours of free childcare to which they were entitled each week last year. This is a missed opportunity for the many children losing out on the enormous benefits of early education and risks exacerbating existing educational inequalities.
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