Abstract
This chapter provides an overview of the childhood education and care (ECEC) landscape in Canada. Canada is a federation of ten provinces and three territories; this constitutional framework gives the provinces and territories full jurisdiction for education and child care (e.g., Canada does not have a federal department of education or child care or a national policy). This model has shaped the development of ECEC policies and programs across the county and contributed to some of the challenges discussed in this chapter. We focus this review on center-based care and public kindergarten and discuss pertinent legislation, policy (including issues of availability, affordability, and children with special needs), and relevant descriptive information of regulation and services across the country. In addition, we provide a brief overview of provincial/territorial ECEC initiatives and include two examples of recent, large-scale policy directions regarding the introduction of full-day kindergarten for 4- and 5-year-olds (Ontario) and the universality of child care services (Quebec). We then present the limited data available about program quality across Canada with a discussion of new initiatives in this area. Emerging trends in ECEC regarding governance, curriculum, and human resources are identified, which indicate the dynamic and continued efforts to improve the quality of services provided for children and families. Finally, the chapter concludes with an analysis of ongoing challenges.
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Notes
- 1.
In Canada, there are three distinct groups of Aboriginal peoples, which according to Statistics Canada can be defined in various ways in the national census (http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/89-645-x/89-645-x2010001-eng.htm). For our purposes we employ the ancestry definition of the three Aboriginal groups: (a) First Nations peoples are defined as North American Indian; (b) Inuit peoples are defined as the indigenous population living in the Canadian Arctic regions in the Northwest, Nunavut, and Yukon Territories; and (c) the Métis people are of North American Indian and eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European (French, Scottish, English) heritage and mainly live in Western Canada (i.e., Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta).
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The first author is supported by the Concordia University Research Chair in Early Childhood Development and Education. We would like to thank the Provincial and Territorial Directors of Early Childhood Education and Care, a committee of senior officials responsible for ECEC in provincial and territorial governments for their input, and Marleah Blom, Ashley Brunsek, and Alyssa Scirroco for their editorial and research assistance.
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Howe, N., Flanagan, K., Perlman, M. (2018). Early Childhood Education and Care in Canada. In: Fleer, M., van Oers, B. (eds) International Handbook of Early Childhood Education. Springer International Handbooks of Education. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-0927-7_35
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