2nd December 2025
All Party Group on Early Education and Childcare November Meeting
The Northern Ireland All Party Group on Early Education and Childcare met on Tuesday 25 November.
At the meeting, the Department of Education gave an update on standardisation in early education. Through their universal offer the Department provides a funded year of preschool for every child in the target age range who wants a place. Each year, around 96% of eligible children take up this offer.
The standardisation programme seeks to transition all pre-school settings in Northern Ireland from 12.5 hours per week to offering 22.5 hours per week for all children in the academic year before they enter primary one.
The Department also shared that the Education Minister sent a draft Early Learning and Childcare Strategy to the NI Executive on 14 November and is now seeking approval to begin a public consultation. This is a welcome development as we have been waiting for this strategy for many years. Once the consultation opens, it is important to get as many and as wide a range of responses as possible, the Department of Education intend to run a series of events to encourage public engagement with the consultation process.
Early Years also delivered a detailed presentation on the latest findings from the Northern Ireland Childcare Subsidy Scheme which Early Years administers on behalf of the Department of Education. This scheme provides a 15% discount on registered childcare costs for eligible parents who also use the Tax-Free Childcare scheme.
In the 2024/2025 tax year, the scheme paid out over £8 million in childcare support. Between April and 30 October 2025, it had already paid out a further £9.8 million in subsidy payments on behalf of parents to registered childcare providers — bringing the total to just under £20 million since the scheme launched in September 2024.