Kathleen Funchion
Question:688. Deputy Kathleen Funchion asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the total of additional ECCE places created in 2022. [24430/23]
View answerTuesday, 23 May 2023
Questions (688)
Written answers
The Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) programme is a free universal two-year pre-school programme available to all children within the eligible age range. It provides children with their first formal experience of early learning prior to commencing primary school. The programme is provided for three hours per day, five days per week over 38 weeks per year and the programme year runs from September to June each year.
For the 2021/22 programme year (September 2021 – June 2022), 107,782 children were enrolled on this programme. For the current programme year (September 2022 – June 2023), there are 108,482 enrolled on this programme.
Based on data captured through the Early Years Sector Profile Surveys 2020/22 (gathered in Spring 2021 with a response rate of 57%) and 2021/22 (gathered in Spring 2022 with a response rate of 82.5%) – extrapolated to take account of all services delivering the ECCE programme – the number of ECCE places had grown by 714 places over this period - with the vacancy rate for sessional services stood in Spring 2022 standing at 37%.
Data collection for the Early Years Sector Profile 2022/23 is currently underway and will give an updated position.