The UNICEF study reviewed early childhood polices and day care services in 24 OECD countries and Slovenia by focusing on 10 indicators, which included:

• child poverty,
• paid parental leave,
• access to child care services,
• the proportion of GDP allocated to early childhood development.

Only Sweden fulfilled all ten factors, followed by Iceland, which scored in nine of the ten areas of comparison. Finland was one of four countries ranked third. The others were Denmark, France and Norway.

The majority of OECD countries were found to have met from 4 – 6 of the development factors. Among those 12 countries were Belgium, Hungary and South Korea. The USA was one of four countries that fulfilled three  of the criteria, while two of the indicators were identified in Australian early childhood development policy.

Canada and Ireland both fulfilled only one development factor.

According to the Report Card 8: The Childcare Transition A League Table on Early Childhood Education and Care in Advanced Countries, released by the UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre in Florence, Italy, a far-reaching change is coming over childhood in the world’s richest countries.

• A majority of the rising generation in economically advanced societies is now spending a significant part of childhood in out-of-home childcare. Almost 80 per cent of the three-to-six year-olds in rich countries are in some form of early childhood education and care. For the under-3s, the proportion is 25 per cent, rising to more than 50 per cent in individual OECD countries.
• In the last decade many countries have also begun to see sharp increases in the numbers of the children under the age of one year being cared for outside the home.

In part, these changes reflect new opportunities for women’s employment outside the home. But in part, also, they reflect new necessities. And the poorer the family, the greater is the pressure to return to work as soon as possible after a birth - often to unskilled, low-paid jobs.

Early months critical
At the same time as this change is advancing across the economically developed world, progress in the scientific understanding of early brain development is confirming that the quality of care and interaction in the earliest months and years of a child’s life are critical for almost all aspects of a child’s development. Taken together, says the report, these two developments mean that the child care transition carries with it the potential both for great benefit and great harm.

Quality counts
Poor quality child care, continues the report, may result in weak foundations and shaky scaffolding for future learning, and what is true of cognitive and linguistic skills is also true of psychological and emotional development.

“High quality early childhood education and care has a huge potential to enhance children’s cognitive, linguistic, emotional and social development,” says Marta Santos Pais, Director of UNICEF IRC.

“It can help boost educational achievement, limit the early establishment of disadvantage, promote inclusion, be an investment in good citizenship, and advance progress for women."

Some OECD countries, says the report, have engaged closely with the childcare issue, pursuing policies designed to realize the potential benefits. In others, out-of-home child care is proceeding in an ad hoc way with less assurance of quality.

Current levels of expenditure need to be doubled
Many OECD countries will need to at least double current levels of expenditure on early childhood services, concludes the report, if minimum acceptable standards are to be reached.

Responding to the report, the Children's Rights Alliance said the Irish Government was focusing on providing childcare places rather than focusing on the quality of education.

"Current regulation is solely focused on health and safety while it neglects quality," Jillian van Turnhout, the alliance's chief executive, said.

"There is no specific regulation which outlines the qualifications, competencies or skills required to work in a childcare service and there is no national quality assessment or accreditation system for childcare services that would motivate providers to deliver high standards."

Children's charity Barnardos said that if society is serious about social inclusion and equality, it cannot ignore the arguments for investing in children early on in their lives.