My child your taxes

There is a cut to government spending on early childhood education and quite a few people are upset about it, specifically and predictably the workers in the sector who stand to lose their jobs and the parents of the users who stand to either pay more or cease having or using the service.

So no one likes having thier free stuff taken away from them so ignoring that, the question is, is this a good idea? How does subsidising child care or early childhood education, as the sector participants prefer, help society.

First up lets tackle that one about child care versus early education. Do kids under five need "educated" there doesn't seem to be much evidence that they do. Clearly there is a lot of evidence that they need interaction with adults, a secure enviroment and so forth but formal education?
Worldwide the age at which people commence formal education varies a lot, however the outcomes appear to me to be very similar in terms of education. In Northern Ireland they start at 4 years old  and in Sweden they wait till they are 7 but I don't think that people from Ireland / Sweden are considered that differently in terms of education at the end.

This paper http://www.eale.nl/Conference2010/Programme/PaperscontributedsessionsF/add129051_MLbgtSeX9b.pdf
specifically looks at the question from an economic view and concludes that as an "investment in human capital" the early the better.
So to be clear early childhood education is about ensuring that your child is an effective unit of production for our industrialised society.

So as I have asperations for my child that mostly revolve around her having a happy and fulfilling life and nothing about her being a unit of production I vote for child care and lets ditch the idea of formal education for 2 year olds. A sand pit and a bucket is going to teach them a heap all by itself.
This education argument may seem irrelevant but it goes somewhat to the heart of the debate as the previous government was pushing for an increase in the number of formally trained teachers employed in this area and the current government does not see this as so important. Further this goes to the level of funding that you think is required as trained teachers cost more than lesser trained staff.

But why is the government involved at all in this area ? A couple of  comments stuck with me, one was "we are reluctant to ask our parents for more money" this from one of the teachers at a child care facility and variations were echoed by other teachers. Why they were reluctant was not canvased but we are led to presume that they would be unable or unwilling to pay.
The solution though was that "the tax payer" i.e. people without kids presumably should pay so that the people with kids, the users of the service didn't have to. I really don't understand the logic for this, unless there is a social good at work, i.e. society is better off by having children in child care than having them at home with their parents.... hmm can't imediately see how that could be unless we are saying that the state (via childcare facilities) is a better parent than actual parents.

The othe comment that struck me was "one of our parents has had to give up work to look after her children as the child care fees made working uneconomic" This was a truely strange comment from where I sat as this was presented as a bad thing. I suspect the economic argument was that the work undertaken was clearly of lower economic benefit than child minding and so by giving up this job society is in fact better off economically.
However never mind that, was the suggestion that we should all pay higher taxes (government money doesn't come from no where) so that this person could continue to work and therefore have a higher standard of living (us lower, her higher) because she chose to have a child? Can't make that work in my mind either.
This view also undervalues the role of stay at home parents as some how this was a "bad" choice.

So the more I think about it the less convinced I am that government has any role at all in early childhood "education" Do people need an organisation and government to help them organise some play friends for thier kids? Is staying at home and raising your kids a bad thing to do? (by all accounts it is a very rewarding activity, I unfortunately have not had the privilage) And do you want your child to be an efficient "unit of production" or are you aiming at happy like most parents. Just some things to think about.