Increased nursery school provision must work for the benefit of all parents

Scott Macnab makes some very important points about what I consider to be a highly desirable ambition – to improve and extend preschool provision (‘Nicola Sturgeon’s big gamble on childcare’, Scotsman, June 13), He overlooks two key factors .

Nursery schooling has – since it was first widely intro- duced – been based on a model of AM or PM places, for roughly three hours. This was mainly because of developmental reasons but also, of course, to achieve wider coverage for a greater number of children.

Some children do get full day provision; this is mainly for children where social need or social benefit is judged to apply. In my view this is the right approach and far more important than making provision for those who can afford to pay.

The consequence of that is that there is now a requirement to double the nursery estate, and since many nursery schools are in ad hoc or limited facilities this would be tough at the best of times. That is why Audit Scotland appears cautious about this being achieved within the desired timescale. I too am sceptical that this can be done in time.

The current trajectory of planning, because essentially based on the school year model and in school facilities, with school teachers, will essentially offer nursery children 1100 + hours per year, confined within about 40 weeks of the year.

My view is that the discussion to date has overly stated what will be provided for children and their families, may enable primary carers to work longer hours, but will not release them for ‘full time‘ work .

It is also, of course, structurally skewed in favour of the already advantaged. The arrangements currently projected may make a professional career easier for a law firm associate able to do 8am2.30pm; they will do nothing for the law firm cleaner coming in at 6am.