Crisis point over 'widening NI-UK childcare gap'
Childcare in Northern Ireland is at crisis point as the gap between what parents in Northern Ireland get compared to those in the rest of the UK widens, a new parents' group has said.
Provisions for three and four-year-olds in Northern Ireland are less than half what they are in the rest of the UK. Meanwhile, parents here are entitled to 12.5 hours of funded term-time pre-school education per week.New lobby group Melted Parents NI is campaigning for childcare reform - the group formed six weeks ago and now has more than 5,000 members.the name was inspired by parents' "heads being melted" by Northern Ireland's childcare situation.
Before the devolved government was suspended last year, it had been working on a childcare strategy - but that has been shelved due to a lack of a power-sharing executive at Stormont."We have had parents say they want their child to go to pre-school but it would crucify them financially," she added.
"We pay the same taxes here as people in England do, there is a crisis here, we can't go on any longer and if we as parents don't get together to say enough is enough - that we need our government to take action - who is?Once extra spending is decided for England - in this case for childcare - the Barnett formula is used to allocate money to the devolved nations.
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