A study released by the University of Toronto shows that non-profit daycares provide a 10 per cent better quality of service than those operated on a for-profit basis. The two authors of the study, economists Gordon Cleveland and Michael Krashinsky, examined 325 daycares across Canada.
In the study, each of the daycares was rated on a scale of one to seven in 42 different categories. Forty-three per cent of the non-profits scored an average of five or better, while only 26 per cent of the for-profits achieved scores that high. Most of the top ranked daycares were non-profits, and most of the lowest ranked were for-profits.
The federal government is scheduled to start discussing a national daycare strategy in February, and Cleveland says that the participants should pay attention to the study's results. "They can't ignore quality in these discussions," he says.
» CBC: Non-profit day care better than for-profit: study
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