Childcare is an indispensable service to Canada as a nation. Childcare is depended on by the economy to give parents an opportunity to maintain a career. It’s also depended on by parents to teach and instil values in their young children’s impressionable minds. In her article Christie Salkaly speaks to the often-overlooked profession of ECE workers and their relevance to the quality of childcare. (Salkaly, 2015) She argues that ECE workers have a lot of pressure and responsibilities on their shoulders with little compensation in return.
In Ontario, parents seeking quality childcare are expected to pay over $1000 a month. Fees like this are common in most of the country. These high fees have caused a significant amount of discussion in the political landscape about how to create affordable, quality childcare. However, these fees have also created a misconception by parents that early childhood educators are paid quite generously due the high fees they’re dishing out for care. Christie
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With a passion to teach and plan an effective curriculum vital to a child’s early developmental experience, how can any of our political parties not have childcare platforms? Christie discusses how three of the four main political parties in the recent Canadian election had childcare platforms this year (Salkaly, 2015). But the underlying issues of the childcare workforce still remain silent. It is hard for child educators to maintain this can-do attitude when the majority of ECEs are struggling to find full time positions and are often faced with split shifts or permanent part-time jobs. The article does an excellent job of reconnecting the quality of childcare with the quality of the professionals that provide it. Christie sums it up well with this rhetorical question, “without passionate ECEs who plan curriculum, teach it, and provide the emotional support young children need, where would child care be?” (Salkaly,