Moving kids from long waitlists into learning centres

For far too long families across the province have struggled to find affordable, quality care for their children. In some communities, it’s because there aren’t enough spaces, and in some, because there aren’t enough staff. 

 

Being only accessible by ferry means that families on the upper and lower Sunshine Coast have had a particularly hard time accessing care options. This is true for all other rural and remote areas, which is why our investment in training Early Childhood Educators (ECEs) in these communities is so important in making child care more accessible across the province.

 

For many years, families looking for care options, and students looking to build a career in early childhood education, simply were not a priority for the former BC Liberal government. After housing, child care was a family’s largest expense. Thousands of children sat on waitlists, with their parents even having to forgo careers. The BC Liberals failed to address this problem, instead, letting it grow.

 

I am glad to say our New Democrat government is doing things differently. We recognize the importance of ECEs. They are the people who spend hours on end with our children ensuring they are safe, that they are learning, and are well looked after. 

 

We’re taking steps to increase wages, and to open new doors for those pursuing a career as an ECE. Its crucial children are receiving high-quality care during their formative years, making our investment in ECEs an important and long-term priority. High turnover or overworked staff is not good for our little ones. We’ve seen this on the Sunshine Coast and across the province as over-worked and under-paid staff abandoned their field because they didn’t have a provincial partner supporting the services they offered to families.

 

As they say, help is on the way. Earlier this month our government announced that twelve public post-secondary institutions will add a total of 314 student spaces in early childhood education programs, ranging from part-time certificates to full-time diplomas. By training more ECEs, we’ll go a long way to address the demand for professional child care workers.

 

With this funding in hand, I am pleased to share that Vancouver Island University will be expanding their ECE program to the Powell River campus. This is a big deal for our community. If you don’t have qualified staff, spaces become inaccessible. By bringing this program to Powell River we will be able to train a new generation of ECEs, and continue to deliver on creating new, affordable spaces so that parents can go back to work.

 

To date we have created more than 10,000 new, affordable child care spaces across B.C. and we are just getting started. The Childcare BC plan sets out to create more than 22,000 licensed spaces, and that wouldn’t be possible without investments in training more ECEs. To create more spaces, we need to train more staff. I am pleased that we are partnering with post-secondary institutions to expand programs for the next generation of ECEs.

 

To make the program even more accessible for students, there are significant bursary opportunities. Through Early Childhood Educators of BC, students are eligible to receive up to $4,000 in funding per school semester.

 

The choices made by the BC Liberals gave tax breaks to the top earners in the province instead of investing in critical services, and a growing future workforce that will soon be supporting B.C.’s economy. We all have seen how families have struggled with rising costs and the impossible decisions they’ve had to make between their careers and child care costs. We’re taking action by creating new spaces for children, new educational opportunity for students, and lowering fees for parents. We have already seen good results around the province, and we intend to keep going.