Early Childhood Education and Care Provision in Spain

Abstract

This chapter looks at the evolution of Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) provision in Spain since the beginning of the 1990s. The main objective is to understand the way in which the introduction of three years of pre-school (for children aged three to six) within the national education system has had an impact on the quality of the provision and the working conditions of professionals. The chapter also compares this progression of ECEC for the over three children with ECEC for the under threes. Here, the main question is if the development of a whole new sector of welfare in Spain could offer a structural opportunity for a large number of good jobs and contribute to reversing or at least cushioning some of the Spanish prevalent shortcomings in employment, which was the case with the extension of public education in the 1980s and 1990s; or if, on the other hand, there are trends and risks that set the main lines of causality the other way around.