Spotlight
Nearly 600 Schools Set For Full-Day Early Learning
Transcript of video
I'm here at Victor Lauriston Public School in Chatham. This school, together with about 600 others, is to going to be participating in our brand new full-day learning program for our four- and five-year-old children.
We're excited about this program. It's the first of its kind in North America. It's about ensuring that our children have every opportunity they need to prepare them for more advanced learning that takes place in Grade 1.
We know that this kind of a program will give our kids a better chance of not only completing high school, but going on to university, college or an apprenticeship program, landing a good job and enjoying a high quality of life.
Today as I speak, in fact, we are making available online a list of 600 schools which are going to be participating in our full-day learning program for our four- and five-year-olds.
When we open our doors to full-day learning for our four- and five-year-olds, it's not just a matter of improving educational opportunities for our kids and guaranteeing or at least assuring their greater success at school. It's also about building a stronger economy.
It's good for the kids for obvious reasons. It's also good for their parents. Think about families today, so many of whom are caught up in the struggle to juggle workplace and family responsibilities. They're leading these hectic, just-in-time lives.
It's going to be a great thing to know, as a young parent, that I can take my child to school or I can have my child brought to school via the bus, and be able to stay there for the entire day in a secure, professional learning environment. As we extend this program to preschool and after-school opportunities as well, it'll be even better for families and the children themselves.
It's all about building a strong foundation for a strong economy and a globalized, knowledge-based economy.
So we're proud of this program. We're looking forward to moving ahead with this. We're going to phase it in over the course of some five or six years so that by 2015, we'll be accommodating every single child that wants to be enrolled in this program.
It's not a mandatory program. It's a voluntary program. But we expect that there will be a tremendous amount of interest on the part of all our families.
