The Petteri Orpo government intends to remove the obligation for municipalities to produce a municipal-level early childhood education plan and kindergarten-specific equality plans. Both the Finnish National Agency for Education and the Early Childhood Education Teachers’ Union have criticised these measures. Minister of Education Anders Adlercreutz stated that the removal of municipal early childhood education plans was based on a report by the Finnish Education Evaluation Centre (Karvi), but Karvi itself has also criticised the abolition of municipal early childhood education plans. ( HS 30.7.2024 )
What are the actual savings?
According to the government, by abandoning the municipal early childhood education plan, municipalities would save 1.8 million euros per year. That amounts to less than 6,000 euros in savings per municipality per year. By way of comparison, Kirkkonummi alone spends approximately 28 million euros per year on early childhood education .
What practical harms follow from removing the plans?
If municipal early childhood education plans are abandoned, every kindergarten will have to base its activities on the national early childhood education plan. This means more planning work for kindergarten staff. Municipal early childhood education plans also serve as a tool for harmonising the quality of early childhood education across the municipality’s various kindergartens, and they are also an important tool for monitoring the quality of private kindergartens in the municipality — which account for around 30% of day-care places.
The government estimates that abolishing kindergarten-specific equality plans would save 44,000 euros per year across the whole country. That amounts to less than 200 euros per municipality per year.
However, it is important that the equality plan be kindergarten-specific , since every kindergarten differs in terms of its children, parents and staff. In the worst case, ending equality work could lead to kindergartens failing to take account of the needs of children with different backgrounds — costs that society would then bear at a later stage when children are unable to start school on equal footing.
Fortunately, Kirkkonummi can be wiser than the government in these matters and continue to produce these plans. Other municipalities competing with us for families with children will certainly do so. In practice, the government’s saving through this measure is simply a transfer from one budget to another — from the state to the municipality — with the same taxpayer footing the bill regardless.
I have written more about early childhood education: about the home care allowance supplement , about club activities , about the adequacy of early childhood education and about why education is the municipality’s most important task . Read more in my posts on early childhood education .
Published in Kirkkonummen Sanomat on 28 August 2024.
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