The City of Victoria plans to push the province to expand recruitment and training of early childhood educators, to improve access to affordable child care.
A council committee voted Thursday to have Mayor Lisa Helps contact the provincial ministers of education, advanced education and skills training, and the minister of state for child care, to ask for more support for educator recruitment, training and retention.
Coun. Jeremy Loveday tabled a motion Thursday that said ensuring adequate staffing for public child-care providers is a step toward ensuring access to affordable child care for all.
The motion noted that even though new child-care spaces are being created, publicly operated child-care providers, including those operating out of city-owned community centres, have had trouble finding and holding on to employees.
The committee also voted to have city staff come up with options for providing additional funding to community associations to help with recruitment and retention of early childhood educators.
