News & Stories: Policy Monitor

The State of Our Children and Youth report and The Right to Identity, Culture and Language: A Child's Path to Development (A Statistical Background Report to the Child and Youth Advocate's 3rd Annual State of our Children and Youth Address) released.

Ministerial Advisory Committee on Early Learning and Childcare announced. The committee will provide advice on implementing the government’s Early Learning and Childcare Plan under four key principles of accessibility; affordability; inclusiveness; and quality early learning and child care. The committee will also facilitate communication between the department and early learning and child care centres, parents, schools and community partners.

Budget announced $1.4 million to fund an increased number of early learning and child care spaces and an additional $800,000 for the Daycare Assistance Program (child care fee subsidy).

On January 11, 2012, the Minister of Education and Early Childhood Development announced a plan "to reorganize school districts; increase parents’ involvement on district education councils; and to pay chairs and members of these councils."

Excerpt: "Amendments have been proposed to the unproclaimed Early Learning and Childcare Act to establish a single piece of legislation called the Early Childhood Services Act. The new act would combine all early childhood programs and services such as preschool autism intervention, prenatal support, early learning and childcare, and early intervention.... Changes to the section of the act detailing curriculum frameworks are proposed so that licensed childcare facilities use only one of the two frameworks provided by the department."

The provincial government has released a three-year, $38-million action plan, Putting Children First, that will integrate early childhood services into the school system.

The provincial government has "re-instated the wage enhancement of $2.75 per hour for early learning and childcare staff. The initiative supports the pay equity measures for early learning and childcare staff".

The Premier of New Brunswick provided a progress report on its three-year action plan, Putting Children First: Positioning Early Childhood for the Future, unveiled last spring. Included in the plan are integrating early childhood and education services, realigning the boundaries for local early childhood services with school district boundaries and extending the definition of early childhood up to children 8-years-old.

The government of New Brunswick announced it would be "investing an additional $1 million in the Day Care Assistance program to increase childcare subsidies and to expand the program eligibility to help families with early learning and childcare costs." This funding is part of the government's $38-million three-year action plan Putting Children First.

The budget contains more than $230 million in spending reduction initiatives across departments that are designed to offset inflationary pressures. Detailed, in-depth reviews are underway in the departments of Health, Education and Early Childhood Development, Social Development, and Transportation and Infrastructure to identify service delivery efficiencies. Various efficiency measures have been rolled out across all departmental budgets to offset inflationary and service demand pressures and allow for select new investments.

Investing in our children and our schools is one of our government’s top priorities. With the challenging financial situation that we face, we must ensure that we get maximum value from every dollar we invest in our learning system. The Department of Education and Early Childhood Development’s (EECD) budget is increasing by one per cent in 2014-2015.

Excerpt: "Increasing the budget for the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development by 3.1 per cent so that strategic investments can be made that will be guided by new, comprehensive plans for both education and literacy."