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Three out of 10 B.C kids on a path to failure

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Author: 
Chan, Cheryl
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Publication Date: 
17 Oct 2010
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More than 30 per cent of kindergarten-aged kids in B.C. are entering Grade 1 "developmentally vulnerable," according to the latest results of the Early Development Instrument (EDI), which has tracked more than 140,000 kids over the last decade.

More alarmingly, B.C.'s vulnerability rate, which was 25 per cent in 2001, has been steadily creeping upward, meaning that an ever-larger percentage of kids is arriving at school lacking the skills needed to thrive.

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Vulnerable children can experience negative outcomes later in life, such as low literacy and numeracy skills, failure in school, teen pregnancy, lower income, criminality and poorer adult health.

The EDI's vulnerability threshold is not set impossibly high: It doesn't require kids to come into kindergarten a little Einstein or miniature Mozart, only that they come appropriately dressed, nourished and rested and hit age-appropriate benchmarks such as being able to hold a pencil, follow instructions, get along with peers or know at least 10 letters of the alphabet.

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While EDI statistics show vulnerability is more concentrated in poorer neighbourhoods, the bulk of at-risk children come from the more populous middle class, says Schroeder.

Researchers have identified three major barriers that contribute to vulnerability.

Poverty is certainly a factor - B.C.'s child-poverty rate, at over 10 per cent, remains the highest in Canada - but experts say deeper societal shifts are also at work.

Laden with debt, often paying a mortgage in the most expensive housing market in the country, in which the average price of a home is about $488,000, most B.C. families need two incomes to afford a roof over their heads.

The result is time poverty, says Paul Kershaw, a family policy researcher at HELP.

"As parents try to juggle the challenges of balancing work and family demands, most families very often say their family life, unfortunately, gets the leftovers of their time and energy," he says.

Then, as families with young children try to mitigate time poverty with community services and support, they often come up against a lack of accessible, quality, early childcare facilities that provide a healthy, stimulating environment.

Schroeder said this third barrier, dubbed service poverty, can be as simple as geographic inaccessibility, a lack of services in a language understood by parents or a lack of services during hours when working parents can access them.

Compared with other developed countries, Canada has become an "international laggard" in terms of early childhood care, says Kershaw.

In 2008, UNICEF ranked Canada at the bottom of a survey evaluating early learning and childcare services in 25 industrialized countries.

Canada also spends the least on early childhood programs - only 0.25 per cent of GDP, according to a 2004 OECD survey  compared to its counterparts.

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There are pockets of wonderful things happening in B.C.'s early childcare program, say advocates. But overall, it remains a patchwork system that's fragmented and fragile, with funding that comes and goes.

The province introduced full-day kindergarten this year at a cost of $424 million (which will be the subject of Wednesday's Growing Challenge instalment), but it has also slashed funding to other much-lauded early-childhood programs.

"We are not making the public policy changes to achieve 15 by 15. If anything, we are moving farther away from it," says Kershaw.

Investing $1 now to help children at a young age will reap $6 in future economic benefits, adds Kershaw -- a "phenomenal payback."

The reticence of politicians to commit to a comprehensive early-years plan and society's seeming lack of concern puzzle Carol Matusicky, former director of the B.C. Council for Families.

Most Canadians hold dear the premise that every child deserves the best start in life. So why, she wonders, are we content to abandon the early years to happenstance?

Matusicky says the sentiment that the early years are a private family matter no longer works, because more families are struggling at a time when parenting has become more complex. Both Canada and B.C. need to be bolder and braver in social policy, she says, especially when it comes to the early years.

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-reprinted from The Province