Leading and Innovating in the Early Childhood Education Sector
Drs. Elizabeth Childs and Kathleen Manion received a BCcampus grant to bring 30 thought and practice leaders together to design what the future of early childhood education will look like in BC.
Early childhood education has been identified as a key federal and provincial government priority with over 8.4 billion dollars being invested over the next five years. Building “the first new social program for British Columbia (BC) in generations is a significant piece of work, and one that is still very much underway. Reducing costs and increasing access for parents to child care is vital, and a key part of our economic strategy as a province” (Mandate Letter, December 7, 2022). Included in this significant investment are a variety of funding vehicles aimed at reducing childcare costs to $10/day or less and with the most recent announcement of the ChildCare Fee Reduction Initiative. In addition to reducing the cost for parents, the five-year strategy is also focused on the development of an operational funding model for all ECE providers in BC; the development of a wage grid, pension and benefits for ECE as well as the identification of career progression pathways and continuing education requirements; the creation of new childcare spaces 100% fully funded by the province as part of the New Spaces program and other policy and funding enablers. With only 20% of families having access to a licensed childcare space in BC and the province having only one half of the needed number of early childhood educators (ECE), it is not surprising that this has been identified as a key area of importance to support economic recovery provincially and nationally.
As BC rolls out $10/day quality child care, the early childhood education (ECE) sector is amid transforming and professionalizing. RRU is seeking to launch new academic programming to support ECE leaders (including ECE directors/program managers). To best serve the children and families of BC and meet the requirements of the Ministry of Education and Child Care, we need to better understand what key leadership priorities and areas for innovation exist to make this leap with an ultimate goal of “improve early childhood professional’s knowledge and understanding of the current context for childcare in B.C.”.
To do this, we brought together 30 thought and practice leaders together across two workshops to design what the future of ECE will look like in BC. With knowledge generated from these workshops, an open source, free, asynchronous learning module for ECE educators and providers across BC was developed entitled Leading and Innovating in the ECE Sector OER (https://oer.royalroads.ca/moodle/mod/book/view.php?id=2815).