This article presents and analyses the expansion in the availability of places in early-years education due to the "Bolsa Creche" program. The cited program is a financial mechanism whereby the local government of Hortolândia transfers public resources to private schools based on the number of students enrolled and frequenting the school. Despite receiving the name of "Bolsa Creche", this package finances all early-years education, both kindergarten and preschool. In order to assist this analysis of the period 2004 to 2006, we put together educational, financial and legal information directly related to the implementation of the "Bolsa Creche" program, by way of semistructured interviews, documentary research and government websites checks. Database checks developed by the Group for Studies and Research in Educational Politics, were also used. This study confirms that the "Bolsa Creche" program has a negative effect on early-years, state education, by transferring it to the profit-making, private sector, locating it in mindset that is both mercantile and privatizing.
privatization; public-private partnerships in education; early childhood
