Taskforce: integrate childcare and education
One organization for childcare and primary education where all children between the ages of XNUMX and XNUMX attend. And where there is one curriculum, one pedagogical vision and where employees from different disciplines work together.
The task force advocates cooperation between education and childcare in the advisory report 'Time to get on with it' that was recently published. The task force was instructed by the Ministry of Social Affairs to examine how cooperation between childcare and education could be improved, to provide practical advice and to find out where the bottlenecks are.
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'The need for cooperation between childcare institutions and primary education has been discussed in the Netherlands for fifteen years,' the report states. "It is now high time to put the exchange of views into action and to continue."
The researchers argue for integration of education and childcare. This should be legally possible.
They also propose that there be joint financing, one inspection and one collective labor agreement.
"This is the next step that needs to be taken so that children can develop optimally," the report says.
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Now there are two systems and collaboration is often difficult due to bureaucratic obstacles. There is no continuous development line for children. The researchers therefore advise to start looking now at how the educational curriculum can link up with childcare. Professionals should also be given time to work together in order to bridge cultural differences.
AOb-chairman Liesbeth Verheggen thinks merging childcare and education is a bad idea.
“Reception and education are not the same. Education is purely focused on the development of the child,” she says.
Teaching is really different from supervising and taking care of students at a daycare center. You should not want to make one function of those professions.
"It is a devaluation of the teaching profession, while we intended to strengthen this profession."
Good cooperation between education and childcare is important, says Verheggen. “Continuous development lines are needed. Moreover, a lot is already possible: childcare and classes can already be together in one building and have, for example, one supervisor. For years, the collective labor agreement for primary education has stated that pedagogical staff and teaching assistants can be deployed widely.”
