Kindergartens have longer opening hours

Kindergarten day care children kidHappy children playing outside while in day care. Photo NTM

From 2007 to present, the number of kindergartens which are open ten hour hours or more increased from one in four to one in three, according to preliminary figures from Statistics Norway.

This is revealed by the Municipal Report on the so-called Kostra figures from Statistics Norway (SSB).

Opening time is not necessarily the same as how long children are allowed to stay. There are no studies that show what is the optimal time for a child to stay in a kindergarten.

But we must have the courage to debate how long day a kindergarten day should be. Whose needs are met by long hours?

There must be limits to how far the elastic can be stretched before it affects the children, professor of education at NTNU, May Britt Drugli, said.

Drugli recently published a study showing that the youngest children, who spend the most time in the nursery, are more stressed than those who have shorter days.

 

Source: NTB scanpix / Norway Today