Pre-School provision – 12.5 or 22.5 hours per week? Check how many hours your chosen providers are offering

In the past, for most children in Northern Ireland, the pre-school session has only lasted 2.5 hours per day, 12.5 hours per week, with only a limited number of providers offering a full time place of 4.5 hours per day, 22.5 hours per week. However, since 2024 there has been a concerted effort from the Department of Education to increase the number of pre-school providers offering 22.5 hours per week so that this will eventually become the standard provision for all children.

To date a total of 105 pre-school settings have transitioned to the longer session length, providing over 2,500 additional full-time pre-school education places from September 2025 in the first cohort of the Standardisation Programme. Work towards transitioning a further 2,200 additional pre-school places across approximately 100 settings to full-time provision from September 2026 is well underway. It will take a number of years for the full roll-out of standardisation to be completed and the speed of transition will be dependent on the resources available from the NI Executive at each stage as well as individual circumstances of individual settings.

Further information

So, when you are applying for the pre-school place make sure you check how many hours are offered. If it is unclear in the providers’ information available online just give the provider a call as they may be awaiting a decision being made by the Department of Education.

More information on the Pre-School Education Programme – Standardisation is available at https://www.education-ni.gov.uk/articles/pre-school-education-programme-standardisation, this includes a list of all the pre-school providers who have requested transition to 22.5 hours and those who have already had a decision made.

More information on the pre-school application process can be found at:

https://www.eani.org.uk/parents/admissions/pre-school-admissions-guide.