Update: Deadline extended till August 15! There is still time to express your thoughts.

ARPA Canada learned today that the BC Early Childhood Learning Agency is conducting a consultation to hear public input on whether kindergarten should be expanded to full-days for 5 year-olds and eventually also include 3 and 4 year olds by 2012.

In a letter to the agency, we voiced our concerns about the increasing grasp of the government into what should be a parental responsibility. “We are convinced that not only do parents know best what is good for their child, they also are the best ones to be providing early childhood learning. Institutional care can never compete with the care provided by the immediate family of a child,” we explained in our letter. You still have time to fill in a short form to give your thoughts to the Early Childhood Learning Agency.

Update: To learn more about the push for full-day kindergarten, who is behind it, and reasons why it may not be for the child’s wellbeing, check out these articles from Kids First Canada. For example, one article looks at the motivation for these policies from the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development): “the “ideology of the family” is a problem and must be replaced by “a new order. This includes deep changes in societies in general and in the family’s structure in particular…a review of the family-state relationship regarding the responsibility for the care and education of children.”