The Council Recommendation on high-quality Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) systems underlines the importance of access to ECEC services for all children and recalls that quality ECEC can be “an effective tool to achieve educational equity for children in a disadvantaged situation, such as some migrant or ethnic minorities (for example Roma)”.
It can provide Roma children with a start in life that is equal to their non-Roma peers’, which is essential to break the cycle of intergenerational transmission of poverty. To reach this objective, ECEC needs to be accessible, available and affordable.
Low participation
As the percentage of Roma children aged between 4 and the starting age of compulsory primary education who participated in ECEC amounted to only 53% in the nine surveyed countries in 2016, the EU Roma strategic framework for equality, inclusion and participation for 2020-2030 set out an ambitious target of at least 70% of Roma children aged 3 and above participating in ECEC by 2030.
