The Dutch cabinet wants to make multilingual daycare possible. Multilingual daycare could be an efficient stepping stone to multilingual education.
Multilingual daycare
In recent years, several organisations have experimented with multilingual daycare. After this, the cabinet decided to regulate multilingual daycare legally. The bill makes it possible to offer daycare – for a maximum of 50% of the daily care time – in German, English or French. In this way, children become proficient in several languages at a young age. Moreover, multilingual daycare facilitates the transition to multilingual primary education.
Organisations participating in the experiment will be given a bridging period (of a maximum of two years) to continue with multilingual childcare until the amendment to the law takes effect.
People can respond to the bill that regulates this through an internet consultation until 31 January 2023. The intended entry into force of the amendment is January 1, 2024. Anyone who wants to can respond and give his/her opinion on the regulations at www.internetconsultatie.nl .
For Eindhoven News: Beena Arunraj
