Additional funding of €85 million was allocated to the Department of Children and Youth Affairs in 2016 for early years care and education, an increase of 30% on the 2015 allocation. However, in the Netherlands, almost all children from age 4 have a legal entitlement to free access to pre-primary education in school settings (age 4 corresponds to the first year of enrolment in these settings, children are enrolled in pre-school education in day care centres and playgroups at age 3). However, a distinction should be drawn between pre-primary and early childhood educational development (ISCED 01). A general pattern emerges when both programmes are compared, with the share of public spending tending to be smaller in early childhood educational development (ISCED 01) in 9 out of the 14 countries with available data for both categories.