BODIL ROSENGREN was Chief Secretary of the Commission on Child Centres. Translation: Keith Bradfield Printed by Tryckeri AB Primo, Oskarshamn 1973 ISBN-91-520-0036-2 Quantitative development of the pre-school in recent decades Administration and organization of the pre-school Costs and financing of pre-school activities Previous and current discussion on the pre-school. Problems posed in the Thirties Commissions during the Forties The theoretical debate of the Fifties The Sixties — a steadily growing need for full-day pre-school places The overriding aims of the pre-school The pre-school's pedagogic objectives The need to renew the pre-school's internal and external environment Pedagogic patterns in the pre-school Objectives for the expansion of Swedish pre-school facilities When can the needs of these different groups be met? The pre-school's responsibility for cases of temporary illness at the pre-school Introduction The Swedish pre-school system is currently undergoing a process of dynamic development, both internally and in its external relationships: the focus is on the internal work of the pre-school, its expansion, and its central role in the community as one of the major socio-pedagogic resources for both children and parents in an overall programme of reform in family policy. In Sweden today, our social security is coming full circle: following the National Supplementary Pension reform for the elderly (1958), and the social and educational reforms introduced for children and young people by the establishment of a primary comprehensive in 1962 and a secondary comprehensive in 1969, attention has been directed to the pre-school children (i.e. below the age of 7), to the total situation of families with children, and to the conditions of working life — which decisively affect also our children's lives. Possibly, many of the questions raised even during the Thirties may be answered in the present decade. By taking contemporary trends in the educational and social field, and relating them to the proposals of previous state commissions, the 1968 Commission on Child Centres helped make possible the present, more penetrating debate on the pre-school, and its opportunity to influence the situation of children and their parents, and thus also the community at large. In accordance with its directives, the Commission on Child Centres emphasized the absence today of the dualism between the different forms of pre-school activity (full-time day nurseries and part-time nursery schools) that prevailed into the early Sixties, in respect of both quality and status. The pedagogic aims of both activities are now identical, the emphasis being firmly on the children, and their general and specific needs. The requirement for able, well-trained staff is the same in all forms of pre-school. One can recall here the old days, when Sweden was a country of poverty. The social consciousness of that age was different in kind. The institutions available for pre-school children bore the hallmark of charity: kindergartens were available only for the off-spring of the well-to-do, crèches for those at the very bottom of the scale — the children of unsupported parents, and fallen» women. Today, on the other hand, the crèche the day nursery - the full-day pre-school has status. Increasing numbers are calling on the community's child care services in the form of a full-day pre-school place for their children. The fruitless discussion of comparative quality has ended, giving way to a constructive debate on the general pedagogic and social quality of pre-schools. The development of the Swedish pre-school system is briefly outlined below. Such an outline should help readers understand the current debate on these questions in Sweden, and put in perspective the extremely rapid overall qualitative and quantitative development of the pre-school in the last ten years, parallel with a succession of major socio-political reforms. Quantitative development of the pre-school in recent decades While pre-schools developed qualitatively, and discussions concerning the pedagogic value of different forms of supervision ran increasingly together into a single river of opinion, quantitative expansion of the full-day pre-school was originally very slow. In 1938, there were a total of 9,331 places, in 1941 a total of 13,670 places for pre-school children and schoolchildren at child centres. In 1950, we had 713 child centres with 9,321 places in day nurseries and 18,326 places in nursery schools. During the discussions for and against the full-day preschool during the Fifties, development in this sector practically stagnated: in 1956, we had 10,322 places in day nurseries by 1960, the number had actually fallen slightly, to 10,270 places. The nursery schools, on the other hand, steadily increased (see Table 1). In the Sixties, the number of places at child centres rose to almost five times the level of the preceding decade. State grants for child centres were improved in 1966, which greatly stimulated the local authorities to expand activities. In the autumn of 1968, when the Commission on Child Centres started its work, there were 23,471 places in full-day pre-schools and 56,362 places in nursery schools. Practically the entire increase in full-day places thus occurred in the space of a few years. The latest official statistics available show the number of child centres operating in 1971 to be 3,184. The number of children enrolled was 132,939, of whom 123,498 were pre-school children. The breakdown of pre-school children over different activities was as follows: 39,904 were enrolled in day nurseries and 82,282 were enrolled in nursery schools. In addition, 3,555 children were enrolled in nursery schools for attendance every other day. On top of this, 46,966 children attended family day nurseries* run by the local authority. 37,402 of these were pre-school children. The preliminary figures for 1972 show that we have 52,000 places in day nurseries, A family day nursery is a private home where someone looks after the children of working parents during the day, or part of the day. Table 1. Number of places and enrolled children in day nurseries and nursery schools 1955-1970 105,000 in nursery schools, 10,000 places for schoolchildren at free-time centres and 45,000 places in family day nurseries. Since there were 220,000 pre-school children with gainfully employed parents in Sweden in 1971, we can only observe the existence of a marked shortage of pre-school places, a shortage which is expected to continue throughout the Seventies. At present, we thus cover approximately 20 % of the requirement for full-day pre-school places for the children of gainfully employed or student parents. The places are very unevenly distributed over the country, from a high coverage of the requirement in, above all, Stockholm, to no facilities whatsoever in certain parts of Sweden. Administration and organization of the pre-school The involvement of Swedish central and local government authorities in pre-school activities has greatly increased in the last few decades. By the terms of the Child Welfare Act, which sets a public framework for the pre |