EXCERPTS
Parents of immigrant and disadvantaged children are failing to take advantage of universal childcare that could cancel out the gap in school readiness with children from more affluent families, a study has revealed.
The research, based on test results and medical data of more than 130,000 children, shows three years of pre-school childcare almost eradicates the gap between disadvantaged or immigrant youngsters and better-off children in terms of their academic and physical readiness for school.
However, these poorer children are “substantially less likely” to attend state-subsidised childcare, partly because their parents may be less likely to work, less well informed about the benefits and more sceptical about state-backed support.
Readiness for school
By contrast, the study showed universal childcare had only a modest impact on the school readiness of children from better-off backgrounds even though they were more likely to take advantage of it.
It is the first assessment of the potential benefits of universal childcare by analysing data on children in Germany from 1994 to 2003, just as its government introduced a universal childcare policy, granting a legal right to childcare to any child aged three onwards – similar to the UK’s.
The economics professor Christian Dustmann, director of UCL’s Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM) and a co-author of the study, said it had “important implications” for the UK, where free childcare for three- and four-year-olds from working families has been expanded from 15 to 30 hours a week.
Improving children’s outcomes
“This policy is unlikely to draw those children into childcare who would benefit the most and may therefore not succeed in improving children’s outcomes,” he said.
“Attending childcare early nearly eliminates the difference between immigrant and native children, when it comes to readiness for school.”
Dr Anna Raute, of Queen Mary University, added: “Tying access to free childcare to mothers’ employment status may not draw those children into childcare who would benefit the most.”