The Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Dr James Reilly, today
announced the reform of the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE)
Higher Capitation model to support capacity building and quality
development across pre-schools. The changes will take effect from September
2016.
From September 2016 in ECCE services, Higher Capitation will be paid to
individual ECCE sessions (or rooms) which are led by Early Years
professionals with a relevant Level 7 qualification or higher. This changes
the current model where the higher capitation rate is only paid if all
sessions / rooms in the service are led by staff qualified at Level 7 or
higher. This reform will allow more services to benefit from extra
capitation. From September, services that have multiple ECCE rooms, but
only one with a Pre-school Leader with the necessary higher capitation
qualification, can avail of this higher funding for part of their service.
When the ECCE programme was first launched in 2010, the Higher Capitation
model was introduced as a quality development measure to encourage the
development of a qualified workforce to deliver an education focused
curriculum to children in pre-school settings. A limited number of
childcare staff at the time had higher level qualifications in early
childhood care and education. Today, approximately 38% of services
participating in the ECCE Programme are currently in receipt of the Higher
Capitation grant. These services meet the ECCE Higher Capitation
requirements in all of their ECCE Rooms. It is expected that from September
2016 up to 50% of services will qualify. The sector has asked for this
change for some time and believes that it will encourage services to expand
and to further develop the quality of their service.
The reform of the Higher Capitation model is one of a number of measures
being taken by the Department of Children and Youth Affairs to encourage an
increase in the number of ECCE places available to meet increased demand
from Sept 2016. From then, all children will be eligible for free
pre-school from the time they turn 3 until they start in primary school.
Children will be eligible to enter pre-school at three entry points after
they turn three, September, January and April. The number of places will
need to expand from 67,000 in 2015 to 127,000 by April 2017. Minister
Reilly recently announced €4million in capital funding, aimed also at
expanding the number of ECCE places.
Minister Reilly stated “Reforming the current Higher Capitation funding
model will not only help to support the expansion of the ECCE programme
that I announced as part of Budget 2016, but also, it gives recognition to
the fact that there are increasing numbers of higher qualified staff
working in the early childhood care and education sector. As part of the
Budget, I also announced the increase in the Higher Capitation rate from
€73 to €75 euro per child from September of this year.”
From September, the ECCE Higher Capitation rate will be passed on to
services, based on the number of children allowed to participate in the
qualifying Higher Capitation room.
Minister Reilly added “Attracting and retaining higher qualified staff into
the Early Years sector is good for both children and services. The
provision of this higher capitation rate to more services may provide an
opportunity for employers to consider passing some of it on to their
graduate staff. I am aware that some employers in existing services in
receipt of Higher Capitation already do this.”
The Department of Children and Youth Affairs has begun preparing for the
administration of this reform and details of qualifying criteria and the
application process will be communicated before August 2016.