1 July 2007
Early Childhood Education policy a pale reflection of what is needed

20 hours of free Early Childhood Education per week for three and four year olds kicks in today but it is a pale reflection of what is needed.

The problems are –

(1) The hours are not free:
For most centres the government is providing only a subsidy of the real cost. This mirrors the situation with school funding where education is nominally free but parents are asked to pay a wide range of fees and “voluntary donations”. The outcome is that the charges for under three-year-olds will be increased to make up the shortfall for the three and four-year-olds. The government suggested as much last year when the Ministry of Education said that one option was for centres to -

“…change the fees for all groups to cover the cost for free ECE”

This advice from the Ministry directly contradicts what parents were told at the time the policy was announced. The government then gave assurances that fees for under-3s would not be affected but it is now clear the “free” hours will be part-paid by parents of other children who do not qualify for the “free” hours.

(2) Kohanga Reo and Playcentres miss out:
Children attending high quality, genuine community building Kohanga Reo and Playcentres will miss the government subsidy for the free hours because these centres typically do not have qualified teachers.

On the one-hand this aspect of the policy could be seen to encourage better quality teaching but it necessarily discourages the involvement of parents. Early childhood education is an area of intense interest for most parents and parent involvement which has been championed by playcentres and kohanga reo involves a genuine community-building experience. Parents who meet and work in these centres form binding community networks which are of enormous benefit to the whole community.

Parents who make this choice should not have it undermined.

(3) Corporate profit comes before quality:
The government has extended the policy to private “for-profit” ECE centres. These corporates such as Kidicorp have welcomed the government money and will reap a tidy profit from the more than $50 million they will receive each year.

The new funding policy looks at education through the narrow lens of the teacher and the corporate sector rather than the wider context of child, family and community.

ENDS

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