Letter: Modern parents need nurseries
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Your support makes all the difference.Sir: As authors of the recently published Good Nursery Guide, we and our researchers have visited more than 500 day nurseries, workplace nurseries, nursery schools and classes throughout the UK. In our experience, Susan Elkin's contribution to the nursery education debate ('Teach parents, then the child', 16 November) is out of date and out of touch. She does a gross disservice to the millions of caring, responsible parents who struggle to offer their children the best start in life by securing one of the lamentably few high-quality nursery places available in this country.
No doubt Ms Elkin was lucky enough to grow up in a middle- class home, well resourced with books, toys and educational age- appropriate equipment and was nurtured by a mother who had no wish or economic necessity to work outside the home. The reality of life in Britain in the Nineties is very different from the immediate post-war period, when women were actively discouraged from joining the workforce, in favour of men returning from the war.
Today, more and more women want and need to find part- or full- time employment. Many of them are single parents, often living in areas of considerable deprivation. What they require is a full range of high-quality, affordable day care and early years educational services that meet their needs and those of their young children.
The enormous benefits of good nursery education are indisputable. Mounting research evidence shows that children who have had a high- quality pre-school nursery experience do better once they reach school, stay in education longer, are more sociable and assertive and do better in later life, than those who have had no nursery education. In effect, they are more likely to achieve Ms Elkin's aim and become better parents themselves.
On our travels, we found nursery schools and day nurseries up and down the country with huge waiting lists (up to 200 names in some places), desperate parents registering their children at birth, others considering moving house to secure a place in a high-quality nursery. There is an acute shortage of the flexible services parents need, at prices they can afford. No amount of training in 'parenting' will satisfy this demand.
It is time for the Government to relate its policies to the overwhelming needs of parents and young children and embrace the findings of the National Commission on Education, as a matter of urgency.
Yours faithfully,
SUE WOODFORD
ANNE de ZOYSA
London, W12
18 November
(Photograph omitted)
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