ECCE in detail

Capitation grant

The capitation grant is set at over €2,400 p.a. and is a payment made to participating services for each child enrolled. The full year cost of the scheme is expected to be approximately €170 million.

Parents who avail of the scheme in a playschool will be entitled to a free pre-school provision of 5 weekly sessions of 3 hours per day for 38 weeks per year. This amounts to a weekly capitation grant of €64.50.

Parents who avail of the scheme within a full- or part-time childcare service, will be entitled to 50 weeks of free pre-school provision of 5 weekly sessions of 2 hours and 15 minutes per day. This amounts to a weekly capitation grant of €48.50 and the service must reduce the weekly childcare fee for parents by this amount.

In keeping with the government’s commitment to increasing standards in the pre-school sector, a higher rate of capitation is available to services where

(a) all the pre-school leaders have a childcare/early years educational qualification at FETAC level 7 or 8 (i.e. degree level) and 3 years experience of working in the pre-school sector,

and

(b) all the pre-school assistants have the qualifications required for a pre-school leader under the general provisions of the scheme. The higher capitation rate amounts to €75 per week, and applies to sessional services operating under the 38 week and 41 week options of the scheme, although these can be co-located with a full-day 50-week service (which will not qualify for the higher rate).

The free Pre-School Year will normally run from September to August each year. However, rather than wait until September 2010, the scheme will be introduced from January 2010 to maximise the number of parents and children who will benefit, and to enable pre-school services which wish to enter the scheme to do so at the earliest possible date.

Birth Dates for Eligibility to ECCE

The scheme is intended to benefit children in the year before they start primary school. Children who become 3 years and 3 months in September qualify for entry to the scheme for that year (as well as a child becoming 4 years and 7 months between 2nd and 30th September). This means that the ECCE scheme is open to children who, on the 1st September, are at least 1 day older than 3 years and 2 months old and at least 1 day younger than 4 years 7 months old. The effect of this is that children born between 2 February 2005 and 30 June 2006 may enter the scheme from January 2010. Children born between 2 February 2006 and 30 June 2007 may enter the scheme from September 2010.

Parents will be advised to coincide their take-up of the scheme in line with the admissions policy of their local national schools. If cases arise where a national school does not admit children until they are more than 5 years and 6 months at 1 September each year, the OMCYA will look at these cases to ensure that they are not excluded for this reason alone.

Children with delayed development, who as a result will be accepted into their local national school at a later age than normal, will be able to access the free pre-school year to coincide with their school starting date.

Eligibility of Services

Pre-school services which are notified to the HSE, and services which are registered with the IMEB, can apply to participate in the scheme. Services will, normally, be required to have an enrolment of at least 8 children in the pre-school year. Exceptions will be made in some cases e.g. a small rural service may be considered eligible where, due to small numbers of pre-school children in the area, it is necessary for it to have some children in their pre-school year and some who are a year younger.

Services participating on the scheme are required to provide a sessional pre-school service for 5 days a week. Where, for a reason outside their control, a service cannot provide a sessional pre-school service for 5 days a week, applications to provide the same level of service over a 4 day week will be considered. This will be done on a case-by-case basis.

Childminders who are notified to the HSE and who have an enrolment of at least 5 children in the pre-school year will be considered for entry to the scheme if they:

  • hold a childcare qualification at FETAC level 5 or 6 (or equivalent thereof),
  • operate a programme-based, pre-school service which is compliant with the pre-school regulations and which adheres to the principles of Síolta, and
  • are recommended by Childminding Ireland as an appropriate setting for delivery of the pre-school year.

Participating services must be notified to the HSE under the Child Care (Pre-School Services) Regulations 2006 and meet all other statutory requirements. The HSE Pre-School Inspectorate is already implementing Regulation 5 of the Regulations which relates to the development of the child. The Regulations set the ratio of staff to children in their pre-school year at 1 to 8 in the case of a full-time or part-time service and at 1 to 10 in the case of a sessional playschool service.

  • Síolta: The Pre-School Year will be guided by the principles of Síolta, the early years framework which the OMCYA is implementing. As a framework to assist services to progress towards quality early childhood care and education provision, Síolta is not be specific in relation to the educational format or content of the pre-school year’s programme content.

The pre-school year will be supported through a network of mentors and Síolta co-ordinators and this will be developed over the coming months through a range of agencies which work with the OMCYA, including the National Voluntary Childcare Organisations. This model of delivery of free preschool places has been successfully implemented and positively evaluated internationally.

To participate in the scheme, the Pre-school year leader must have a FETAC level 5 or 6 qualification in childcare, or its equivalent. Over 50% of all childcare staff currently have this level of qualification. In the initial phase of the scheme, year leaders may also be accepted where they have completed at least part of the level 5 modules, are in the process of working to complete this training and have experience and expertise in working with pre-school children. The OMCYA will be looking at ways to maximise training supports for this sector including flexible training delivery to facilitate staff out of service hours.

A Workforce Development Plan for the sector has been developed and a national consultation process on this issue is expected to take place very shortly. In addition, many practitioners in the current workforce have many years of experience and have acquired considerable skills in supporting the wellbeing, learning and development of young children. Processes to recognise and accredit such learning will be an important part of this plan.

Payment of Capitation

Participating services will be asked to make an electronic return of their enrolments to the OMCYA in January 2010. This will be processed and will determine the grant level by reference to the number of capitation fees payable for that term. An interim payment will be made to services pending the outcome of this process if any significant delay is expected. A second payment will be made in April in respect of the following term. The process will be repeated in September 2010 as this will be the start of the first full pre-school year.

Services which are participating in the Community Childcare Subvention Scheme (CCSS) will be eligible to participate in the pre-school year. In these cases, the service will receive capitation fees in respect of parents using the service who feel they would benefit more from the new scheme, and it will receive subvention funding in respect of parents using their service who feel they benefit more from the CCSS. The OMCYA will combine the electronic returns for both schemes to avoid additional administration for the services.

The OMCYA helpline is 1890 30 30 39 and queries can also be directed to childcare_mail@health.gov.ie. General information on the new scheme, together with answers to the most frequently-asked questions, can be accessed through the OMCYA website at www.omcya.ie.