Ont. gets full-day kindergarten next year

Ontario will move ahead with full-day kindergarten for all four- and five-year-olds despite an unprecedented provincial deficit, Premier Dalton McGuinty said.

The program will cost $1.5 billion a year once it's fully implemented by 2015, about $500 million more than originally thought.

"Parents everywhere are the same. All we want is for our children to grow up and be the very best that they might be, to achieve their greatest potential,"McGuinty said.

"In a highly competitive, global knowledge-based economy, it's absolutely essential that we invest in the younger generation to ensure that we build a powerful workforce that can compete and win against the best anywhere on this planet."

McGuinty says teachers and early educators will work together in the classroom.

Parents will have to pay if they want their child to stay in school even longer than the added afternoon hours. The after-school hours will bestaffed by early-childhood educators.

About 35,000 children will be offered the program next September, about 16 per cent of eligible kids that are currently enrolled.

Annie Kidder, with the parents group People for Education, said Monday she understands the reality of the situation so "if it takes four years or five years, it's not the end of the world.It's that they do all of the pieces. Not just saying we're doing all-day kindergarten and not anything else."

Already in francophone schools

Full-day junior and senior kindergarten is already a reality in Ontario's francophone system.

Jocelyne Auger, the principal of Gabrielle Roy Elementary School in Toronto, believes it has had a big impact on the vocabulary of the children.

"They were more able, coming to Grade 1 and 2 to read and to communicate better," she said.

Campaign promise

Extending the program to every four- and five-year-old in Ontario is one of the government's biggest unfulfilled promises from its re-election campaign.

In June, McGuinty said he planned to use the all-day learning plan to help his government's anti-poverty efforts by starting the program in lower-income neighbourhoods. Priority would also be given to schools with declining enrolment because they have space for additional students.

The Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario said it supports the plan since the province decided to staff theadded hours with full-time teachers, supported by early-childhood educators, rather than lower-qualified staff as had been discussed earlier.

"We commend the government for its commitment to the welfare of young children," federation president Sam Hammond said in a news release. "The decision took a lot of courage in today's economic environment, but it will pay a lifetime of rewards, not only for children, but for our communities and the economy.

"[Tuesday's] announcement ensures that children and their parents will get the best educational program."