Released on August 15, 2019
Deputy Premier and Minister of Education Gordon Wyant was at the Building Brains Early Learning Centre in Saskatoon today to celebrate the grand opening of 150 new child care spaces.
“Our government remains committed to improving the lives of families through access to affordable, quality child care,” Wyant said. “Congratulations to the Building Brains Early Learning on the opening of its two new facilities, where 150 new child care spaces will now be available to Saskatoon area children.”
“Families shouldn’t have to make the difficult choice between working and staying home to care for their children,” Federal Minister of Families, Children and Social Development Jean-Yves Duclos said. “The Government of Canada is pleased to work with the Government of Saskatchewan to ensure more children have access to the high-quality early learning and child care they need to get the best start in life.”60 child care spaces for infants and toddlers, and 90 child care spaces for preschool-aged children were allocated to the Building Brains Early Learning Centre in August 2018 with funding provided through the Canada-Saskatchewan Early Learning and Child Care (ELCC) Agreement.
Building Brains is a not-for-profit corporation developed to provide early childhood education by offering a program modeled around the Left Brain Montessori method of teaching, the Right Brain Reggio Emilia-inspired philosophy and an internally developed movement curriculum so each experience builds the child's foundation for future learning.
“In the last 7 years we built an award-winning early education program for over 1,000 children a year in Calgary,” Building Brains founder Anil Karim said. “We decided to replicate the program in Saskatoon, providing parents with that perfect balance of high-quality and affordable child care. Our centres not only provide exceptional early childhood education, but also subsidies for lower income families with the objective of building programs everyone can use.”
Building Brains is the latest example of the nearly 1,300 child care centre spaces which have been allocated across Saskatchewan since the ELCC Agreement was signed in March 2018. Communities that have received additional child care spaces over the past year include Saskatoon, Regina, Prince Albert, North Battleford, Swift Current, Yorkton, Moose Jaw, Nipawin, Fort Qu’Appelle, Leroy, Beauval, Vonda, Humboldt and Delisle.With the addition of these spaces, the government will have allocated funding for 7,116 new spaces since 2007 - a 76 per cent increase in the number of spaces over that time.
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For more information, contact:
Chris Hodges
Education
Regina
Phone: 306-787-1069
Email: chris.hodges@gov.sk.ca
Cell: 306-533-7506
Email: mandy@maneproductions.ca