Interest in early years issues such as early childhood education and care (ECEC) andearly intervention has increased in recent decades internationally. Partly this reflectsinterest in facilitating the social and educational development of children, both fordeprived children and the general population, and partly interest in increasing parental,particularly maternal, employment. Concern for such issues has led to substantialpolicy change in the UK in recent decades. For the general population, prior to 1998there was no statutory obligation for the state to provide any early childhood servicesfor children under the statutory school age of 5 years. However, there were provisionsfor ‘at risk’ children, as well as in some nursery education for 3- and 4-year olds, typicallyin more disadvantaged areas, but availability was haphazard around the country.Research evidence and social and political factors have resulted in radical changeto the whole early years services system in the UK. The findings of two longitudinalresearch studies, the national evaluation of Sure Start and the effective provision ofpre-school education projects were important factors in policy change and this paperdiscusses how the interplay of research and policy occurred. Initially changes wereintroduced by the Labour government, but more recent policy changes have beenintroduced by the Conservative government. The need for state involvement in earlyyears services has become accepted by all political parties. There is substantially greatergovernment investment in the early years, so that government-funded ECEC is nowpart of the infrastructure supporting family life for the whole population. This articlediscusses how research evidence has contributed to the substantial policy change inthe last two decades.
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