Akbari - ECE Report overview

So, the early education report came out of the lessons from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, the OECD. In their 2006 report, Starting Strong. Canada was exposed as a policy laggard. We were last in spending on early education programs. We were least likely to see our children access quality early learning programs. 

And so, the OECD left Canada with a prescription. It said, pay attention to your governance. We had fragmented governance. Children services and children programing was not under the same ministry as education. They told us to spend more but spend smart. They told us we need to improve our access but not take shortcuts on quality. They told us that we needed to invest more in our workforce, and they told us that we need to be accountable, collect better data, pay attention to research. 

So, the Early Education Report really came to be to fill this gap of Canadians feeling that there was some accountability at an arm’s length from government that looked at the quality of early education provisions across the country. We have 13 different provinces and territories, and early education is under provincial and territorial jurisdiction. So, we have 13 different service models, 13 different ways of collecting data, 13 different ways of doing things in the country. And so, it became very challenging to have a national report that was able to look at cross jurisdictional quality of services.