Policy Monitor

Excerpt: "The new Provincial Office for the Early Years will focus on the needs of families with children up to age six and help ensure they have easy access to a range of early-years services no matter where they live in B.C., announced Minister of Children and Family Development Stephanie Cadieux at the UBC Early Years Conference in Vancouver."

The Early Literacy Foundations program, designed to give parents and caregivers the tools to promote and enhance early literacy development in children, was launched today (Monday, January 27) at the Michael Donovan Library in St. John’s.

The Child Care Amendment Regulations.

Ontario is taking steps to strengthen oversight of the province's unlicensed child care sector while increasing access to licensed child care options for families. The Child Care Modernization Act, to be introduced December 3, would allow the province to immediately shut down a child care provider when a child's safety is at risk.

Excerpt: "The Government of Manitoba and the J.W. McConnell Family Foundation are working together to establish a million-dollar Early Childhood Development Innovation Fund, the first of its kind in Canada, Premier Greg Selinger announced today. In a partnership with United Way of Winnipeg, the Winnipeg Poverty Reduction Council and the business community, the fund is being seeded by a $500,000 investment from the Montreal-based McConnell Foundation, with matching funds from the Government of Manitoba."

Excerpt: "This focus on disciplinary thinking means that students will take part in actively building their own understanding of important concepts and topics. Social Studies covers many interesting topics with no agreed-upon answer, such as questions about the causes of major historical events or debates about which policy decisions government should make to address a societal problem. Using disciplinary thinking tools, students will learn to develop and support their own answers to these questions, as well as challenge the answers and information obtained through various sources."

This report is the results of the first year’s evaluation of Prince Edward Island’s Preschool Excellence Initiative -- a comprehensive 5-year plan to build a provincial early childhood system for children from infancy to kindergarten. The system’s emphasis is on building a community based, publicly managed early childhood system supporting the early development of children while at the same time supporting parents in balancing their work and family responsibilities.

Education Minister Liz Sandals visited full-day kindergarten students, teachers and staff at Ogden Junior Public School for the first day of school where she provided details on a study conducted in partnership with Queen's and McMaster universities on FDK. The study measured the progress and development of students who were enrolled in FDK compared to those who participated in half-day programs.

The province is opening early years centres in four communities to provide families with more access to services and supports for young children. Education and Early Childhood Development Minister Ramona Jennex announced the locations of the province's first early years centres today, Aug. 22, at Rockingstone Heights School, the site for the Halifax Regional School Board's centre.

Excerpt: "This experimental program is being implemented is 2013 seven of the nine English School Boards of Québec."

The Government has now concluded the first phase of consultation on a proposed framework for legislation on First Nations elementary and secondary education. As the consultation process moves forward, the Government has released a Blueprint for Legislation which sets out the Government of Canada’s proposed approach to a First Nation Education Act and has been informed by the work of the National Panel on First Nation Elementary and Secondary Education, and recent consultations undertaken between December 2012 and May 2013.

Liz Sandals, Minister of Education, issued the following statement on the review of unlicensed child care complaints: "As I committed to last week, my ministry has conducted a thorough review of every complaint received related to unlicensed child care providers over the past year to determine compliance with current policies. The ministry took immediate action to determine whether there were any complaints that had not been addressed. Out of a total of 280 complaints received by the ministry over the past year, it was determined that nine had not been responded to with a site visit.