出版社：Suntory Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines
摘要：A growing body of evidence highlights the importance of high quality early childhood education and care (ECEC) for children's later life chances. All children stand to benefit but research consistently finds that excellent provision makes the most difference to children from disadvantaged backgrounds. These messages have resonated with policymakers in the UK, where the availability, affordability and quality of ECEC have been on the agenda since the late 1990s. Yet the system of provision has developed into a complicated patchwork, in which providers from the private, voluntary and maintained (state) sectors are subject to different regulations, and cost varies from free to prohibitively expensive depending on children's age, their geographic location and their parents' employment status and income
