20 Hours Free – It’s Not Simple

“The Minister of Education, Steve Maharey, has oversimplified the reality of parents being able to access 20 hours of free early childhood education” says EC Leadership spokesperson Tanya Harvey. “For the Minister to say on TV One’s Breakfast programme that it’s simple and all parents have to do is go down to their centre and say my child is here for 20free and enroll them is totally misleading she continues.” (A Tui ad springs to mind). Has he not read the information provided to him, which clearly states that there is insufficient capacity to meet the demand by parents who are currently not attending a teacher led service or a service at all?

Has he not taken notice of the sector saying that the rates are too low? Of course centres will ‘review’ their fees to children under the age of 3, or for 3-4 year olds who attend longer than 20 hours per week and adjust them accordingly if they decide to opt into the 20free scheme. For the Kindergarten’s within EC Leadership the rate is seen as another blow to Associations already grappling with inadequate funding to meet the salary costs of the Governments state sector employees.

The Education Act requires all sessional kindergartens to employ 100% qualified teachers and they provide an extremely high level of quality of early childhood education. Yet the 20 free rate is 91 cents excluding GST; less than the minimal donation or fee currently being asked for from parents and where access to the service is not denied if parents cannot, or choose not to, pay.

With this in mind why do sessional centres with 80-99% qualified teachers receive a higher rate of funding than the 100% kindergartens? That rate is $1.19 per hour and 31% higher. The rates indicated are contrary to the Government’s strategic plan which is to have 100% qualified teachers by 2012.

EC Leadership wants an answer to this anomaly from the Minister. The responsibility that the Government has to the kindergarten movement and its employees cannot be overlooked.

The members of EC Leadership include Auckland, Franklin, Waikato and Central North Island Kindergarten Associations. They represent 212 kindergartens and approximately 17,000 children. Their governing bodies will be seriously considering the ramifications of providing 20free with such a low funding rate during February. The impact and priority on their Association reserves, if they have any, will need to be considered, along with the expected decrease in fundraising that will be inevitable as parents believe everything is free. “It would be ironic if the consequence of 20free was to force kindergartens to introduce or increase fees as a means of collecting the income required to operate a high quality sessional service.

The Government needs to recognise the value of the 100 year history of the kindergarten movement and the service that it already provides to families. They need to make it an easy decision for Associations to opt into and increase the rate of funding to above that of the 80-99% level” says Harvey.

Would Kiddicorp or ABC reduce their return to shareholders just to accept a rate that is uneconomic? Would overseas companies be entering the NZ market if there was not guaranteed Government funding to attract parents to their centre, then be able to charge parents the balance required to operate their profit margin?

The Government does not have any sanctions in place to prevent these scenarios from happening and if they did step in then all centres would opt out of the scheme and then where would the policy be? At least the Early Childhood Council seems to be upfront about discouraging such practices and pressuring for higher funding rates instead. Why should the early childhood sector settle for insufficient rates that will impact on the quality of service to children?

ENDS

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