Private daycare expansion and accessibility concerns in Canada

Private Daycares

Private Day Care Provision

The article discusses the concerns in the Canadian day care industry which relate to the possible entry into the Canadian system of private day care centers. The article discusses the arrival in Canada of 'Fast Eddy' Groves, who owns a multi-million pound day care business in Australia. Groves has denied being interested in opening any day care centers in Canada at the present time. The article suggests that contrary to this there is evidence which shows that Groves has already made moves to acquire some centers in Canada. The article claims that the company owned by Groves, ABC Learning Centers, is also linked to three other companies, two of which are used to source new business propositions for ABC Learning Centers. It is through these other companies that the company is currently seeking to expand into Canada.

There are two main concerns which this move by Groves has raised. The first of these relates to the accessibility issues which this take-over may cause. There are already problems in Canada with the rising costs of day care when compared to the increase in wages over the same period. The day care industry currently receives great supplementation by the government in order to ensure that it is accessible for a wide range of people. The introduction of 'for-profit' day care centers into the industry would raise prices. This would then limit the accessibility of the service for many users. There are also concerns that the private day care centers would select the areas in which the largest amounts of supplementation are present in order to maximize profits.

The second concern which has been raised relates to the quality of the services which are provided by the private day care centers. The article describes research which was conducted which showed that many of the staff who currently work for ABC Learning Centers would not allow their child to attend the centre. This was much higher than the numbers of staff of the government-run day care centers, where only 4% were reported to be opposed to letting their child attend the centre where they worked.

Critical Analysis

As mentioned above, the main criticism of the article is that there is no consideration of the alternative perspective in the article. For example while the statistics were given relating to how many staff would let their child attend the centre in which they worked there was no other information given as to the other information collected. There may have been other findings from that same research which were positive toward the private day care centers. There are several claims made in the article relating to the effect which the ABC Learning Centers have created in areas in which they have been set up. There is little empirical evidence presented to support these claims, however. There have been no studies referenced in the article to provide evidence for any accusations. The majority of the claims which were made in the article relating to the ABC Learning Centers already having set up in Canada were a subject of hearsay rather than documented proof. For example "We've heard they purchased 20 centers in Calgary..." The lack of evidence which is given to support the main arguments in the article does little to support the credibility of the article. If the article were to be improved it would be crucial that there was thorough research conducted to provide documentary evidence of the plans of the company. It would also be necessary to gather evidence to substantiate any claims made in relation to the poor performance of the company if these claims were to be considered legitimate.