Scoop has an Ethical Paywall
Licence needed for work use Learn More

Education Policy | Post Primary | Preschool | Primary | Tertiary | Search

 

ECE budget brutal blow to children and families

ECE budget brutal blow to children and families

The removal of the top two early childhood education funding bands for services with 80 -100% qualified teachers in today’s budget is a brutal blow to children and families says NZ Childcare Association Chief Executive Nancy Bell.

“The announcement in today’s budget of 5-13% decreases in early childhood funding affects more than 2 000 teacher-led ECE services enrolling around 93,000 children. This affects two-thirds of all teacher-led services.”

“Funding will drop by up to $42 per week per child, making many services unviable without massive fees hikes. Services with 50 children will see funding shortfalls of up to $109 000 per year. Most parents will simply not be able to afford these changes and this will lead to children being taken out of ECE. Services will be forced to shed teachers leading to higher teacher-child ratios and lower quality.”

“Studies show that the cornerstone of quality in early childhood is the presence of qualified teachers, removing the top bands will destroy the ability of services to employ qualified teachers. The government is penalising centres who have committed to delivering high quality ECE.”

“We don’t buy the arguments about reallocation of funding nor the claims made by government about the impact of these funding cuts. They are massive.”

“It makes no sense to create greater barriers to enrolment or to reduce quality. There is robust evidence that investment in quality early childhood education brings a high return, in economic as well as educational terms, yet NZ only invests 0.6% of its GDP in ECE, significantly less than the OECD average of 0.9%.”

Advertisement - scroll to continue reading

“This government said it would not erode existing subsidies and fees controls, they have broken their promise. In the short term these decisions will further erode family income and result in children being withdrawn from ECE, in the medium term it will erode quality and compromise outcomes for children. This government wants to lift literacy and numeracy, quality ECE is the vital foundation and cannot be under-resourced.”


ENDS

© Scoop Media

Advertisement - scroll to continue reading
 
 
 
Culture Headlines | Health Headlines | Education Headlines

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

LATEST HEADLINES

  • CULTURE
  • HEALTH
  • EDUCATION
 
 
 
 

Join Our Free Newsletter

Subscribe to Scoop’s 'The Catch Up' our free weekly newsletter sent to your inbox every Monday with stories from across our network.