Third-rate upbringing for our children is a scandal

By George Tyndale on Aug 28, 08 07:37 PM

The child minding industry is in a state. More than one in 10 experienced minders has quit in the past four years and newcomers are joining at the rate of 1,000 a month.

Perhaps it's hardly surprising, then, that so many of those who are looking after other people's children have just been branded "inadequate".

Of those inspected by the education watchdog Ofsted more than 1,000 were declared unacceptable. Assuming that pattern is repeated across the country then around 4,000 fail to reach acceptable standards.

But that's not all. One in 15 schools which also look after youngsters before and after classes was below par. Four per cent of nurseries and crèches failed to make the grade, too.

This means that, based simply on those visited by inspectors, around 50,000 children are being put at risk because their care facilities do not make the grade. Failings include leaving children alone for too long and having unsafe play equipment.

This grim state of affairs has been caused by New Labour's policy of encouraging mothers out to work and fuelling a major upsurge in demand for child minding services.

But in order to offer proper protection for youngsters the bureaucratic requirements surrounding each establishment have become so demanding that many individuals have decided they simply cannot cope.

And worse is to come.

Because from this week the new curriculum for toddlers is being introduced. It aims to monitor the development of each child against 69 developmental goals. It will apply to all 25,000 nurseries and 70,000 childminders.

There are those of us who believe that instituting a policy which sets out to deprive children of the chance to be brought up by their own parents is an outrage.

Research has repeatedly demonstrated that children raised by strangers - whether they are up to the job or not - do less well in life than those who spend their first years in their own homes with the love of their parents around them.

Creating a child minding industry to give youngsters a second-class upbringing is one thing.

To have introduced a system which is so shambolic that tens of thousands of children are getting not only a third-rate upbringing but are also exposed to the dangers of neglect and abuse is nothing short of scandalous.