What the Ontario Ministry of Education gets right on its proposed child care changes
For all the uproar among parents and child care centres with the Ontario provincial government’s proposals to change the child care system, particularly with the re-grouping of age groups, we have to give the Ontario Minisuty of Education credit for recognizing one big gap in child care today. And this probably affects parents throughout Canada and not just the province.
That gap is finding child care spaces after the maternity/paternity leave.
For those who are not familiar with the parental leave situation in Canada, a new mother can take a leave for a year. A new dad can take up to 35 weeks leave.
The Canadian parental leave maybe a cut above other countries, but it does present challenges of finding child care as the parent goes back to work. As per Statistics Canada, 64% of mothers with children under three and younger are employed. This makes the task of finding child care after parental leave very important for many families.
The current age grouping has children age 0–18 months under the Infant category. So a new mom with a one year old daughter looking for a licensed child care centre could only register her child in the Infant room.
In the new age grouping that is being proposed, that same mom would sign her daughter up in the Toddler room, the category for children age 12–24 months.
I think I have an idea why the province thinks this change will work and make it easier to look for child care for a parent looking for child care after parental leave.
I want to show you this chart from the Child Care in Canada study by Maire Sinha:
While the study cautions of this stat, but only 6% parents of children under 1 use child care. This makes sense becase this is the time covered by the parental leave.
The new age grouping increases the size of the space allocation for the Preschool category (24 months-5 years old) from 16 spaces to 24 spaces.
Knowing that the demand for child care for children age 0–12 months would be low and that the space allocation for the Preschool becomes larger, the province is anticipating (or hoping) that the effect would be more openings for children age 12–24 months. This would become the “sweet spot” for the children of parents coming from a maternity or paternity leave.
And if the parent would opt to go back to work early, lesser competition for infant spots would mean increased access and openings.
The way I see it, the mitigating strategy of the province for this change is two-fold: increasing the number of Qualified Staff (ie, registered early childhood educators) and making ratios lower (as indicated in the above age grouping chart).
Will this strategy and the proposed child care changes work? The way I see it, it does potentially make spaces more accessible, especially for children of parents who are coming from a maternity or paternity leave. But from a quality and feasibility perspective, it may be a different story.
As the co-founder of a startup that deals with child care spaces, my appreciation is mainly from a child care space and availability point of view. Many early childhood educators and child care providers would have a different perspective, as evidenced by their critique of the proposed changes.
I do recognize that the new age groupings would mean a new way of staffing for the centres, which could increase salary expenses (which I believe is one of the top expenses for child care centres). This would also mean renovations of rooms to fit the space requirements and sleeping areas for the new age groups. And this could also mean higher child care cost for parents as these daycares might pass the cost of the changes to their customers. Ontario is already the province with the highest median cost for child care in Canada.
As a parent myself, I remember the frustrations looking for an open daycare spot. These changes may help parents find openings, but we also have to think about the cost of doing so.
