The Vancouver Island Party’s Policy On Early Childhood Education

The most important period of development for any person is early childhood. The careful nurturing, educating, and caring of young children sets them up for a productive and healthy life. Conversely, abuse and neglect, all too often seen in our society and around the world, lessen the young person’s long term chances at success. It increases the likelihood of future disorders, exacerbates those that are already present, and often results in homelessness and crime, burdens, which the province and the country as a whole have to bear. Our best option for countering this is prevention in the first place; and that prevention is early childhood education.

Kindergarten should begin at the end of maternal/paternal leave on a voluntary basis with flexibility for the parent. It would allow primary care givers a break. Working parents would have an economical option to be able to go to work. Day cares should also have the children participate in early childhood education. By doing this we would achieve some extremely important goals.

Teachers would be able to spot abuse very early on. This would end the chain of abuse for many children before it starts. This would save society an immense amount of money and grief.

Teachers would be trained to spot various issues early on such as dyslexia, autism, aspergers, pervasive development disorder and many other issues that affect a child’s early development and education. This would allow early intervention with proven therapies to improve the child’s chances in their later educational experiences. It would allow many children who would normally be dropped at the way side of the education system and then struggle later in life with becoming valued members of society.

This policy would increase the number of successful outcomes and reduce the number of drop outs due to frustration. It would also have the added benefit of reducing crime and increasing productive citizens down the road.