To ask the Minister of Education for her assessment of preschool provision, particularly in rural areas.

Pre-school provision is an important phase of early education and learning for all children.

My Department’s aim through the Pre-School Education Programme is to provide a year of funded pre-school education for every target age child whose parents want it. Pre-school education is non-compulsory, however, each year most parents - approximately 93% - apply for a funded pre-school place for their child.

In each of the last eight years my Department has achieved its aim with at least 99.8% of children whose parents remained with the admissions process to the end receiving an offer of a funded pre-school education place in a setting of their preference. A similar percentage of children living in rural areas (based on the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency definition of urban/rural) were placed in a setting of their choosing.

In the 2021/22 academic year, a total of 22,790 children attended funded pre-school education places across 699 pre-school settings. Based on the NISRA definition, approximately 32% of funded places were in rural areas, across 302 pre-school settings. This is broadly in line with the population distribution based on the same definition.

Information from the Education and Training Inspectorate also demonstrates the high quality of the pre-school provision we offer our young children. Moving forward my intention is to build on this through the standardisation of the length of pre-school sessions and the implementation of the early years actions in the Fair Start Report.