Trevor Mallard Speech: Working together for our youngest children
Speech to launch of Early Education Federation, Education House, Wellington
Good evening everyone. Thank you for inviting me to the launch of the Early Education Federation.
Congratulations to everyone involved in this new beginning for you all.
For over two decades your organisation - under an old alias - has made a significant contribution to the lives of
countless young New Zealanders. You've played an important and valuable part in helping form new policy for early
childhood education and in particular you have given strong support to the early childhood education strategic plan and
its implementation.
We can all be proud of the progress that has been made in early childhood education, and I would like to thank you
personally for positive and constructive contribution.
As you celebrate your new organisation tonight, it's worth looking at the huge progress we are making in early childhood
education through the strategic plan.
We can all be proud to say Pathways to the Future: Ngâ Huarahi Arataki is changing the face of early childhood education
in New Zealand.
Changes ushered in by the strategic plan ultimately mean a seamless education system from birth to 19 years will be
available for every young New Zealander.
Quality early childhood education will quite rightly be recognised as having a vital role in establishing a strong
foundation for a child’s learning.
And innovative professional learning will be backed by an excellent institutional framework as the changes we are
delivering through the strategic plan take hold.
Substantial government funding has enabled the progress we have made for accessible and affordable quality early
childhood education.
Our significant new investment of $152 million over the next four years from this year’s Budget means total expenditure
on early childhood education in 2008-09 will be $694 million, an increase of 140 per cent since we came to government in
1999.
Just last Friday the extra new funding for running an early childhood centre began.
This was a significant milestone on the road toward providing a funding system that recognises and encourages the
different needs and strengths across the sector; a system that is transparent and more responsive to the cost of
operating different types of services.
The new funding system and recent increases to funding rates mean a service’s child-hour funding rates can only increase
between now and 2007; even where a service has few registered teachers it can continue to receive the former Rate 2
until 2007. Our goal now and with your support is to continue improving the quality of early childhood education and
ensure participation rates keep climbing.
We've made great gains in participation already – enrolments have increased by nearly 10,000 in the past two years.
To continue this trend we need to provide good information about the benefits of early childhood education and ensure
all families have options that suit their needs.
The Promoting Participation Project will continue to support disadvantaged families who might not otherwise participate
in early childhood education.
Increased funding for the Discretionary Grants Scheme will ensure new services are available in areas of need. As a
result of Budget 2005 some 55 to 65 more community-based centres will be built over the next four years.
This will create many more places for youngsters in the lead-up to the introduction of the 20 hours free early childhood
education for all three and four-year olds in community-based centres in 2007.
On that note, I must remind you of what my opponents have promised to do to early childhood education. National has
pledged to scrap our government's commitment to the 20 hours free policy. This effectively means that around 86,000
children and their families will miss out, in order to help pay for that party's tax cuts. I believe other cuts are
instore - and English is preparing the groundwork for this. Why else would you criticise widely-accepted domestic and
international research that tells us how important quality early childhood education can be for children's success in
education later on. Why else would you criticise our government's determination to widen access to quality early
childhood education, and our intention to improve affordability so more families can take part. In contrast, I am sure I
do not need to reiterate my own and the Labour-led government’s continued commitment to early childhood education, as we
continue our focus on increasing participation in quality, affordable early childhood education.
Labour's manifesto is still being finalised, but I'd like to signal some of our current thinking.
On the quality side, you will be aware that the Ministry of Education consulted on three options to improve adult: child
ratios last year, and also separately on proposals to improve group sizes in services.
We've known for a long time that good adult: child ratios are associated with better outcomes for children, so it was no
surprise that the feedback on this supported making improvements. Feedback on group sizes told us that, at this stage,
change through regulation could lead to negative outcomes for levels of participation.
Going forward there is more work being done on both proposals, so I will be consulting with you further before a
decision on ratios is made. With regards to group sizes, I have deferred a decision until 2009 to allow for more
information to be gathered. However, we are working towards improvements in both these areas for the future.
Another important focus is improving access. We will be working with existing early childhood providers to extend
services, by either growing their centres where appropriate or establishing additional centres on other sites.
Employers, particularly in the state sector, will be encouraged to establish early childhood education and care
facilities on work sites.
Greater family and whanau involvement will be encouraged through targeted education programmes and improved
co-ordination with health and social service agencies.
In addition, to help ensure services are working to meet the needs of the families they serve, we will move toward
requiring parental and staff involvement in the governance of early childhood services. This will include providing them
with good information to guide their input.
We all know the involvement of parents and whanau can work wonders for their children’s learning. Budget 2005 also
provided $16 million for Foundations for Discovery, the new information communications technologies framework for early
childhood education. This framework promotes using technology as part of a young child’s education and is also an
administration tool helping services to streamline their administrative systems. Seeing the way some of our youngsters
are using this new technology has amazed me - they are taking better digital photos than me and having great fun using
ICT as they learn. This year we also released the early childhood education exemplars. What is really exiting about the
exemplars is they include the voices of parents and whanau, alongside teachers and children. This is a ground breaking
and innovative move for early childhood education in New Zealand and I believe for the rest of the world. Finally, these
are exciting times for early childhood education up and down the country. We can take a moment tonight to proudly chalk
up the improvements we've made to date, before we get back to work and put our collective minds to charting the course
for the future.
I look forward to continuing to working alongside you as we seek to improve even more the education our under-fives
receive.
Again warm congratulations on your new future as the Early Education Federation.
Thank you.