Early childhood education and care (ECEC) is the educational stage (International Standard Classification of Education level 0) prior to basic and compulsory education, which starts at the age of 6 years.

Children aged 0 to 5 years are enrolled in this stage, including those with special educational needs and those who are socially disadvantaged. ECEC is governed by the principles of normalization and inclusion, ensuring non-discrimination and equal access to and continuance in the education system.

Parents or guardians can choose the preferred school for their children, either public or private. There is only one access criterion: the child's year of birth.

Place guarantee to ECEC

Spanish legislation (Law on Education 2/2006 [LOE]. Article 15.2, modified by Law on Education 3/2020 [LOMLOE]) guarantees that all children over 3 years of age have the legal right to a place in ECEC:

The second cycle of early childhood education will be free. With the purpose of meeting the demands of families, the educational administrations will guarantee a sufficient number of places in public and publicly funded private schools, in the context of their educational programme.

The educational administrations of the autonomous communities have incorporated this legal right into their regulations. In order to fulfil this, the procedures developed include the possible creation of admission guarantee committees —the name varies between the autonomous communities— in charge of supervising the admission process in the schools belonging to their area of influence. Families may submit their applications for admission to the school where they wish to enrol their children to the admission guarantee committees or to the educational administration, depending on the regulations of each autonomous community. The schools must be informed of the admission requests that affect them. By law, no child can be left without a place in a public or publicly funded school.

Affordability

First cycle of ECEC (children aged 0–2 years): publicly funded settings

The first cycle of ECEC is not free of charge, but, since 2006, the number of places financed with public funds has been progressively increased in collaboration with the educational administrations of the autonomous communities.

The fees that families must pay in the first cycle of public ECEC settings are determined by the administrations that own first-cycle settings. In addition, the educational administrations of the autonomous communities can regulate maximum public fees, for which they usually take into account criteria such as:

• more than one child in the family attending the same setting;
• household income;
• number of the hours of the child's stay in the setting;
• use of the meal service.

Second cycle of ECEC (children aged 3-5 years): publicly funded settings

The LOE, Article 15.2, modified by the LOMLOE, establishes that the second cycle of ECEC is provided free of charge.

The guaranteed number of free weekly hours for children is 25.

The educational administrations of the autonomous communities regulate the organisation and operation of the complementary activities and complementary school services of transport and meals in the public educational centres in their area. Families are responsible for paying for the costs of these services, although there are grants that help cover them.

Both cycles of ECEC: private settings

Private settings have autonomy to establish the level of fees to be paid by families. These fees are a mandatory contribution to the cost of the services received, among which are:

• complementary activities (field trips and/or visits);
• extracurricular activities;
• complementary services (meal service, transportation and housing);
• other services, such as extension of hours in nursery school and medical services.

Concerning funding, educational administrations of the autonomous communities can give grants for the payment of the registration and attendance fees of children attending private ECEC settings.