Yeah were pretty lucky,
however that's where my problem lies, it works well for alot of other jobs that have the classic 9 to 5 hours, like my sons school does breakfast clubs starts at 7.30am til the school starts and then they have after school club till about 3.40pm to 6pm. But working in nurserys they have the same hours so I can never do a full time shift of 8 to 6..
Plus being home this past year has been great, I dont know if my kid's ready to go back to long school days.... I might go back to part time...still debating it though.
But Its kinda like we have no excuse not to work since we're have longer childcare times, we even have free funding for 2 to 4 year olds for like half days in some places so 8am to 1pm or 1pm to 6pm... So there's insentive for parents to work I guess.
I mean it depends on your concrete job. I can imagine how for many jobs that could be simply impossible and longer shifts would necessarily have to be installed, but I think for some jobs like office workers, accountants, whoever basically managed to pull a home office during the pandemic, this could just mean literally four days of work.
unfortunately, not everyone can afford that. I personally can´t imagine this at schools (apart from maybe universities) that could do this, and the reason is exactly as you have stated. where would children of people who cannot afford to work only 4 days go? especially the younger ones? would they just be left to take care of themselves freely? or would they just open "voluntary classes on Fridays"?
like I´m not against that idea but I think it would have to be planned very very very well.
I do like the British system though. the early childcare here is just non-sufficent. sure, officially kindergarten CAN start at 2 years old, but most kindergartens are so full, your child will be very lucky to get accepted at 3 years old (which used to be an official age for entrance), only the last year of pre-school (6 years old) is for free and mandatory. there are no after-school programmes at all unless you pay for some dance classes etc. which usually last for an hour and you have to take your kid there.
I´d like to see anyone coming with it and pulling that off because I think Scandinavian countries were trying to go that way and they are more organised. so I´m keeping my fingers crossed for them .can´t imagine that here though.