The Irish way

There's an article in today's Star by Thomas L. Friedman, about Ireland's improved place in the world over the past 30 - 40 years.

It started me thinking about the current Liberal focus on early childhood indoctrination.

Freidman says:

In 1996, Ireland made college education basically free, creating an even better educated workforce. . . The results have been phenomenal. Today, nine out of 10 of the world's top pharmaceudical companies have operations here, as do 16 of the top 20 medical device companies and seven of the top 10 software designers.

"We set up in Ireland in 1990," Michael Dell, founder of Dell Computer, explained. "What attracted us? Well-educated workforce - and good universities close by. Ireland has an industrial and and tax policy which is consistently very supportive of businesses, independent of which political party is in power."

Childcare is getting an huge amount of attention because Ken Dryden is pushing it. He has said only regulated care can deliver high standards for health and safety, staff training, ratios of caregivers to kids, and other key elements of early childhood development. His suggestion is that parental care is inadequate, and there has been some talk of negotiations with New Brunswick (where they want greater flexibility for parents who choose to stay home with their kids) According to Andrew Coyne in yesterday's National Post, these talks have suggested that parents would have to receive 'training' in order to benefit from any government support and that they would be 'regulated'. I'm not sure how that would work, but it sounds too weird to me.

Anyway, although Dryden knows most families would prefer to have one parent stay at home with their children, or for a relative to care for them, he says the national daycare program should be like public education or medicare by creating a system that would generate demand from parents -- forcing governments to keep expanding it. "More spaces, higher quality, higher expectations and ambitions, a bigger and growing public appetite, building the pressure on each level of government, to reinforce the commitment implicit in building a system," he said. "We need to paint ourselves into a corner because it's a corner we want to be in and need to be in."

Needless to say I disagree. In a post a couple of months ago I wrote against national public daycare, and more and more I realise how the Liberals are trying to turn this from a debate about babycare to a debate about education. But the fact remains, the government is trying to get into the babyminding business. Call it 'early childhood education' if you like, but it's babysitting. Changing diapers, chasing toddlers, spit up, potty training etc.

Most parents encourage learning during infancy at home, and as Rona Ambrose has pointed out, having a caregiver from within the family enables a child to learn language and culture from his own heritage. Infants and toddlers require a lot of individual and messy attention. Daycare workers might be able to incorporate periods of 'learning' but let's not pretend we're going to be churning out child prodogies as a result of a program like this.

It would seem that Ireland's focus on post-secondary education has been a major factor in the turnaround they've made from a poor, needy country to a rich, productive country.

There are other factors of course. Friedman continues:

By the mid-1980's, Ireland had reaped the initial benefits of EU membership -- subsidies to build better infrastructure and a big market to sell into. But it still did not have enough competitive products to sell, because of years of protectionism and fiscal mismanagement. The country was going broke, and most college grads were emigrating.
"We went on a borrowing, spending and taxing spree, and that nearly drove us under." said Deputy Prime Minister Mary Harney. "It was because we nearly went under that we got the courage to change."

In a quite unusual development, the government, the main trade unions, farmers and industrialists came together and agreed on a program of fiscal austerity, slashing corporate taxes to 12.5% (far below those in the rest of Europe) moderating wages and prices, and agressively courting foreign investment.

An educated populace realises that if you have jobs you won't need public housing and bottomless pit social programs.

Maybe we should be rethinking our education priorities, making post-secondary programs financially feasible to all citizens rather than paying billions to strangers to mind our infants and pretending that it is better for them than parental care. A mom, dad or grandparent can as easily teach their little ones their ABCs. Handing them over to state regulated care is not going to miraculously transform toddlers in to baby geniuses.

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