Early Childhood Education and Care in Ireland

Foreword

A noticeable feature about the development of early childhood education and care across the century has been the vibrancy, innovation and vision of people, mostly women. None of the events described in this book would have taken place without their enthusiastic participation, input and support over the years.

This book takes the reader on a historical tour of the origins and development of the key features and themes of the ECEC sector over the past 100 years. As I read it, I was taken back to the visit of Maria Montessori to Waterford in the 1920s and the vibrant Montessori provisions since that time. Indeed, the various chapters elucidate the complex relationship between the State and the ECEC sector over the decades, particularly the stance of Rev Professor Timothy Corcoran SJ in the early years of the Irish Free State. The book also reminded me of the pivotal decade of the 1960s not only in the development of services and the creation of organisations, but also the changing of attitudes towards women, children and ECEC. The influential Plowden Report in the UK impacted significantly on the Primary School Curriculum of 1971 which gradually impacted on practice in the infant classes of primary schools. The various chapters prompted me to remember that societal changes and the impact of European funding in the 1990s catalysed significant developments, including the OMNA project in the DIT, the Early Childhood Education Forum and the seminal White Paper on Early Childhood Education, Ready to Learn. This laid a foundation for subsequent developments, most particularly the increasing and ongoing professionalisation of the sector. A particular contribution of the book is the tracing of parallel developments in Northern Ireland in the same period, noting the similarities and differences in the pathways travelled. All of the above appear in much more detail in this fascinating book. I can assure the reader that the authors of all the chapters, most of whom I know, argue their case with passion and expertise.

Like many good ideas, the genesis of this book can be traced back to a chat over coffee involving both co-editors in late 2018. The absence of a dedicated volume delineating the historical development and evolution of the complex and multidimensional early childhood education and care (ECEC) sector was something that, we felt, affected contemporary understandings of a vibrant and integral aspect of the education system. The motivation for the book was to provide an anthology that would retrace some of the origins and foundations of the sector in order to comprehend its current, complex, structures. In compiling this book our goal was to explore the evolution of the ECEC system since the establishment of the Free State and critique the historical and contemporary provision in Ireland under a number of key themes. As the centenary of the establishment of the Irish Free State (later the Republic of Ireland) approached, we believed the time was opportune to capture the salient milestones and markers on the sector’s historical landscape. Focusing on the 100 years from 1921 to 2021, and on the age range of birth to 6 years of age, offered a framework for the book and provided a fitting tribute to the pioneering work of the sector’s founders, almost exclusively dynamic women who fought against the odds to provide quality ECEC experiences for children. While the book acknowledges the pivotal role of parents in caring for and educating their children within the home, the key focus is on the provisions outside the home for children from birth to 6 years.

We immediately concluded that an edited book was the best approach considering the diversity and complexity of the sector. Our involvement in the sector in various ways enabled us to identify expert authors who could provide rich personal and professional insights on the sector from ←1 | 2→a range of perspectives. In selecting contributors and topics, we sought to achieve a careful balance in documenting the past, profiling the present and signposting the future across the various chapters. The aim was to explicitly identify authors, and indeed create co-authoring opportunities, to present a range of diverse experiences, perspectives and trajectories within the sector. We were delighted with the response from chapter authors contacted and with their engagement throughout the eighteen-month process of developing the edited book. The chapter authors brought a nuanced and insightful perspective to their chapters based on their professional expertise, and indeed their contributions and commitments to the sector over extended periods of time. Individually and collectively, the chapters reveal profound insights on the development of many critical aspects of the ECEC sector in the last century and deepen our appreciation of contemporary opportunities and challenges. While each chapter provides a rich account of a particular theme, many transversal themes permeate the book and are brought together in the Conclusion. While the focus is on the past and the present, the book also has an eye to the future in terms of signalling prospective opportunities, challenges, hopes and possibilities. Our sincere thanks to each of the chapter authors for their generosity in sharing their expertise and indeed for their forbearance with us throughout the writing process.