“Ontario is both a beneficiary and victim of the early start that it got in the development of child care services and practices in Ontario public schools.  As a result, child care in schools has now become the dominant site for child care in Ontario.“ As of March 31, 2023, 55.2% of child care centres and 65.0% of child care spaces were in publicly funded schools. The number of licensed child care centres allocated in publicly funded schools increased by 6.5% in 2022–23 compared to the previous year and spaces increased by 9.3% in the same period.

Ontario was an early adopter of establishing school-based child care.  In the late 1970’s, through the 1980’s and 1990’s hundreds of child care centres were opened for both preschool and school-aged children in public schools.  This initiative was institutionalized in 1987 when the government decreed that all new schools also had to include child care centres. 

Despite the fact that all four- and five-year olds had access to free half-day kindergarten at the time, child care was treated as a separate, private service compared to the free and public character of education.”