Final preparations are underway across Dundee to deliver the near doubling of young children’s entitlement to early learning and childcare by next year.
The city council’s children and families service committee will hear that new jobs are being created, with modern apprenticeships and the future skills college creating a well-trained and high quality workforce for this increase in early education hours.
Millions of pounds are also being invested in a series of building improvements to help deliver the new service. A new nursery in Douglas is proposed, while refurbishments of former nursery buildings across the city are ongoing.
Entitlement to free early learning and childcare will increase the current 600 hours to 1140 hours by 2020 for all three and four year olds and eligible two year olds.
Already, a number of nursery have been operating with the increased hours, and a number of benefits are reported.
These show that children have coped well with more hours and that parents can attend for family learning opportunities.
Children and families service depute convener Councillor Roisin Smith said: “We are putting in a huge amount of preparation for this change to ensure that we can get the services in place for the young children who are entitled to them.
“This means that we are not only looking to get more people trained to have the correct skills, we have to make sure that there are appropriate buildings available.
“Our partner providers across Dundee are essential to help us deliver this change and we see services developing across the city in a mixed and flexible fashion.”
Councillor Smith added: “There will be many educational benefits for the children who are the focus of this expansion and it will give them a great start that will help them as they grow and move onto school.
“The expansion of nursery hours will also have an impact on the economy of the city, allowing parents to attend training courses or take on jobs that they would not have been able to in the past due to time or cost issues.”
The committee meets on Monday May 13.
Dundee City Council
Dundee draws skilled workers from a 60-minute catchment population of 640,000 and has a local population of over 140,000. The availability of a large pool of highly skilled labour is a key feature in the Dundee economy. Flexibility in the labour force is currently more prevalent in Dundee than in Scotland as a whole. All forms of labour market flexibility - part-time, temporary employment, self-employment and shift work - are widely operational within the city. Labour force stability in the city is excellent, enabling companies to plan with confidence. Labour turnover levels are less than 5% and absenteeism averages 2%.
