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Balancing educational and childcareneedsIn many developed countries as well as in LatinAmerica, preschool and day-care services havedeveloped in parallel. 222 The educational modelof preschool services holds that children needaccess to schooling before reaching the ageof compulsory education. This model tends tobe quite universalist, that is, concerned aboutthe early education of all children. However,it is not necessarily in tune with the needs ofworking parents. Indeed, preschool servicesoften run only part-time programmes. Daycareprovision, by contrast, is based on a workfamilyconciliation model aimed at enablingparents to work outside the home and protecttheir offspring while they do so. However, unlikepreschool services, which are offered to allchildren, this type of provision has tended to bemore targeted, focusing on children from lowincomeor vulnerable households.Recent efforts to expand ECEC services inChile and Mexico illustrate this split. In Mexico,preschool services for 3–5-year-old childrenare integrated into the broader educationalsystem, with preschool enrolment mandatoryfor this age group since 2002. This strategy,which has also been pursued in Argentina, hashelped raise attendance and reduce coveragegaps between high- and low-income groups.However, reflecting their educational mission,most preschools run only half-day programmes,limiting the extent to which they can free workingparents from their childcare responsibilities.Access to formal, full-time day care, especiallyfor younger children, has been largely restrictedto women in formal employment. 223To remedy this shortcoming, in 2007 the MexicanGovernment launched the Federal Day-CareProgramme for Working Mothers (Programa deGuarderías y Estancias Infantiles para Apoyara Madres Trabajadoras). This programmepromotes the creation of home- or communitybasedday-care centres for children from lowincomehouseholds, where parents have noaccess to other day-care services. The HogaresComunitarios in Colombia and Guatemalafollow a similar approach. 224 In Mexico, parentsare supported through a voucher system thatreduces user fees on a sliding scale based onhousehold income. The achievements in termsof expanded coverage have been remarkable.The programme now constitutes the single mostimportant source of day care for children underthe age of 4, running 84 per cent of day-carecentres in the country and absorbing 56 per centof total enrolment for that age group.The programme is an important step towardsuniversal access to childcare services. However,there are concerns over the quality of services.The programme has a significantly lower budgetthan services available to formal workers whocontribute to social security, and there arelower requirements in terms of staff educationalcredentials and basic infrastructure. Thequality of jobs that have been created is alsoquestionable. Paid caregivers and their assistantsare self-employed and thus lack access to socialprotection. Caregivers have complained aboutthe low level of subsidies, suggesting that it isdifficult to both comply with programme deliveryrequirements and earn a decent wage. 225Chile has also made progress in terms ofequalizing access to childcare services, especiallysince 2006. In contrast to Mexico, day-careservices were expanded by increasing theavailability of tax-financed public servicesfor 0–3-year-old children from lower-incomehouseholds. As a result, coverage increasedfrom 17 per cent in 2006 to 26 per cent in 2011and the gap in access to these services betweensocio-economic groups has also decreased. 226In addition, efforts have been made to provideservices in ways that meet the needs of workingmothers by ensuring that the majority of newlycreated childcare centres offer full-day andextended schedules. Yet, in common with Mexico,day-care services for under-3s are followed by apreschool system for 4- and 5-year-old childrenthat offers largely part-time programmes andoperates on a school year calendar, with extensiveholidays.