27 April 2005
Kidicorp Position Themselves as Enemies of Freedom
“Kidicorp have pinned their colours to the mast and deserve to be exposed for the acquiescing selfservers that they
are,” says Peter Osborne, Libertarianz Spokesman to Deregulate Education today.
Mr Osborne is responding to an advertisement masquerading as a press release from Wayne Wright, Kidicorp’s Executive
Director. In the advertisement, titled ‘Kidicorp geared for growth’, Mr Wright claims that ‘Negative sentiments
expressed by some owners of early childhood education centres regarding increased administrative workloads to meet the
new Ministry of Education funding system are misleading.’ “Not half as misleading as Wright’s press release,” responds
Osborne.
“In the last two years there have been more early childhood centre closures than ever before,” says Osborne. “This is a
direct result of the administrative burden that the Ministry has placed on these centres. The latest funding criteria
have only compounded problems further. It is always the small operators that feel this burden the most as they find
themselves spending more time fulfilling the state’s edicts than concentrating on the things they actually have a
passion for, namely teaching. But being the largest early childhood provider in the country, I suppose that the current
scenario suits Kidicorp nicely, as one-by-one the competition will drop away.”
“Such is the way with regulation: the large operators get larger, while the smaller ones go to the wall under a flood of
paperwork.” Osborne wonders if Kidicorp will find itself immune to Nanny’s agenda when they are among the only private
operators left standing.
“Frankly I find this whole-hearted and enthusiastic embracing of state interference to be incredibly smug and
disingenuous,” Osborne says. “The general tone of Kidicorp’s release makes me wonder if the ministry divvies out its ill
gotten loot more freely to those who fall into line. Going by Mr Wright’s press release he seems almost ecstatic to
receive such interference.”
“This is a classic example of why the state and education must be separated. Early childcare centres are dropping like
flies for all the wrong reasons. It is not because of incompetence or mismanagement but because they are being lumbered
with an ever-increasing compliance burden. If our current model is able to continue, parents will be left with no
options for their child’s first learning experience. With a monopoly there is no option, especially when the Labour
Government makes early childhood education compulsory.”
Mr Osborne concludes, “Libertarianz will free the education sector in its entirety. The state will no longer have the
power to engineer things to suit their own agenda. This will leave schools to operate effectively without unnecessary
burdens from the state and no organisation will be able to use state coercion to gain an advantage over other providers.
ENDS