Nursery care vouchers urged
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Your support makes all the difference.The Government is under renewed pressure to introduce nursery vouchers to cover the cost of child care for all three-and four-year-olds.
The Adam Smith Institute, a right-wing think tank, is proposing a system by which poor families would be given £5000 in vouchers to cover the full estimated cost of a pre-school place. Families paying basic rate tax would get £3000, 60 per cent of the cost, while those paying income tax at 40 per cent will receive a voucher for £1,000.
It offers a market solution to the problem of day care, with nursery schools provided by the private sector rather than local authorities, says the report. It recommends combined nursery centres which integrate day care with education and which open all year round from 8am to 6pm.
An analysis by David Soskin, himself a founder of a group of independent pre-schools, calls for a complete audit of all state schools. Unused space could be converted into premises for nursery schools. Private schools should also be allowed to bid to runsuch establishments.
The Government would be required to provide part of the funding of this shake up in the nation's child care.
"Because the pre-schools provide integrated education and care from 8am to 6pm, access to them would give many parents the choice of going out to work if they wished, reducing in some cases a dependency on the welfare state caused by a lack of affordablechild care," the report says.
These calls are supported by a pamphlet published last month from the Centre for Policy Studies, another right-wing body, which said parents should be given a top-up voucher worth about half of the cost of an independent nursery place.
Gillian Shephard, the Education Secretary is reviewing nursery education after the Prime Minister promised there would be expansion as soon as public spending permits.
She has expressed her reservations about vouchers while emphasising that all options remain open.
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