According to Jack Dromey, Erdington MP, all 61 children centres and 27 nursery schools “will cease to exist as we have known them and many will close” due to funding problems.
Dromey, 59, pointed to the goverments plan to provide 30 hours a week of free childcare to children aged three or four if both parents work. However, seeing as the funding has not been provided for this, it appears nurseries will be forced to fund the costs by either increasing rates or reducing places.
Dromey said local head teachers had warned him this could lead to many nurseries and schools closing down. “The Government claimed in their manifesto to be committed to extending free childcare but is only pushing a chronically underfunded system to breaking point with the new proposals.
“We know that children who have good quality early education have better results later in life. If we don’t protect our nursery schools now, the price paid by our children in the long term will be enormous.
“Nursery schools will cease to exist as we have known them and many will close. So too will children’s centres, vital in an area of high deprivation like Erdington, rich in talent but one of the poorest in England.”
