Uptake of 20 hours free low, likely to get lower

Uptake of 20 hours free low and likely to get lower

The likely uptake of 20 hours free ECE by early childhood centres was low and likely to get lower, the Early Childhood Council’s (ECC) annual conference was told today. (30 March)

The Council’s CEO Sue Thorne told the conference in Christchurch that not only had a survey of 1000 New Zealand centres (completed last week) revealed ‘a very low uptake’, but it had revealed also that many centres had indicated an intention to opt in only because Government had not made the rules clear to them.

The survey of both community and privately owned centres had only 23.9% answering ‘yes’ to the question ‘will your centre be opting into Free ECE?’ Mrs Thorne said.

‘But worse than that, according to our survey, many centres with costs in excess of the Free ECE rates, are opting in only because they believe they are able to offset their losses by increasing fees for the hours three and four year olds attend over and above the 20 free, or by increasing fees for one and two year olds.

‘The Minister of Education made clear to me on Monday, however, that this is not the case.’

Mrs Thorne said that centres, struggling with how to provide the Government’s Free ECE without sacking staff or cutting services, would now feel ‘seriously misled’ about the rules for the policy.

Mrs Thorne said that while 23.9% of survey respondents had answered ‘yes’ to the question ‘will your centre be opting into Free ECE?, 30% had answered ‘no’ and 46.1% remained undecided, with three quarters of the ‘undecideds’ saying they would not opt into 20 free were they “required to make a decision today”.’

This ‘limited uptake’ of Free ECE was ‘almost certain’ to get worse once centres realised the most common techniques for ‘balancing the 20 hours free books’ had been ruled out, she said.

The survey revealed uptake of Free ECE would be highest where costs were lowest, and lowest where costs were highest, Mrs Thorne said.

Regions in which fewer than 30% of respondents said ‘yes’ to the question ‘will your centre be opting into free ece?’ included: Greater Auckland (North Shore, Waitakere, Auckland and Manukau combined) (11.9%); Greater Wellington (Wellington, Porirua, Upper Hutt and Lower Hutt) (28.6%); Christchurch (18.8%); Tauranga (25%); and Hamilton (22.2%).

Sent to 615 decision makers responsible for running 1000 centres nationwide, the survey was the most up-to-date hard data on the likely uptake of Free ECE, Mrs Thorne said. The response rate was 50.6%.

Centres responding to the survey included education and care centres, Montessori, Rudolf Steiner, Chinese, Teen-parent units, Christian and Maori. Both community and privately-owned centres responded.

The Early Childhood Council is the largest representative body of licensed early childhood education centres in New Zealand. It has 615 voting members representing 1000 centres. 38% of this membership is community-owned centres and 62% is privately owned. These centres employ more than 7000 staff, and care for more than 50,000 children.

ENDS

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