Healthy food and quality early childhood education vital

12 December 2012
Immediate Release

Healthy food and quality early childhood education vital for kids in poverty

Ensuring all children get access to healthy food is just one of the measures that the Government needs to adopt to address the educational needs of many of the country’s 270,000 children living in poverty.

NZEI Te Riu Roa National President Ian Leckie says far too many children arrive at school not ready to learn because of hunger and other ill-effects associated with poverty.

NZEI has welcomed today’s findings of the Expert Advisory Group on Solutions to Child Poverty and says they are a step in the right direction.

“The report shows very clearly how the country’s appalling level of child poverty needs to be addressed if the Government is serious about wanting to lift student achievement.”

However, Mr Leckie says the Government needs to go further to ensure that policies around eliminating or countering the effects of poverty are equitable.

“We need to adopt a universal coordinated approach so that all children in need get access to quality food.

“Countries with high educational outcomes such as Finland already ensure that all children have access to quality food in schools. This avoids stigmatisation and ensures greater equity in schools – both very important for overall quality public education.

“The Government should not leave the feeding of children to individual schools to broker deals with the private sector because this would result in a patchy approach and some children would miss out. It would also take valuable time away from quality teaching and learning.”

NZEI has also welcomed the expert advisory group’s call for improved quality Early Childhood Education.

“Quality early childhood education is a great investment and is particularly important for children from deprived backgrounds.”

ENDS

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