Unfair criticism of early childhood education by Prime Minister

Early Childhood Council CEO Peter Reynolds has today (10 February) expressed concern that the Prime Minister’s Statement to Parliament this week ‘repeated unfair Government criticism of the early childhood education sector’.

Mr Reynolds said the Prime Minister’s citing of early childhood education as an example the ‘failure’ of Government spending had hurt and angered many in the sector.

The National Government had repeatedly portrayed the efforts of early childhood educators as an onerous economic cost, Mr Reynolds said. But this view misrepresented the huge economic contribution the sector made to New Zealand.

Money invested in early childhood education offered a financial return on investment by reducing future public spending on crime, justice, remedial education, unemployment and welfare, said Mr Reynolds.

Early childhood education improved the cognitive skills and emotional wellbeing of children and ensured they entered school ready to continue learning. And there was a measurable link between high-quality childcare and the subsequent entry into the labour market of high-skilled individuals.

Mr Reynolds said the rapid growth of early childhood education had made possible the social revolution that was the entry en masse of women into the workforce. New Zealand’s early childhood educators thus improved the quality of that workforce by enabling employers to attract employees who would otherwise be unavailable for work.

Early childhood services supported educational advancement for parents thus producing a more skilled workforce and better productivity, and reducing reliance on welfare.

Early childhood education made it more likely New Zealand would retain its young, high-skilled workers, and made New Zealand more attractive as a migration destination for young, high-skilled workers.

And early childhood centres improved labour force productivity by improving employee retention and reducing the absenteeism of parents who might otherwise take time off to attend to children.

Government revenue cuts to early childhood education that had come into effect this month had impacted the families of 100,000 children and cost most additional fees between $10 and $40 a week per child at a time when many were already struggling financially, Mr Reynolds said.

Some families had been forced to pull their children from early childhood education altogether, others had been forced to cut back hours.

Centres had been forced to cut costs by reducing the proportion of qualified teachers, teacher-child ratios, the quality of food, and the amount of repair work on buildings,

The fee increases had forced some working mothers to re-evaluate whether working was worth it, removed therefore some valuable part time workers from the work force, and were probably also increasing absenteeism as parents took time off work to look after children.

And this was, said Mr Reynolds, damage done not only to children and families, but to the economy as a whole. The Early Childhood Council is the largest representative body of licensed early childhood centres in New Zealand. Its 1100 member centres are both community-owned and commercially owned, employ more than 7000 staff, and care for more than 50,000 children.

ENDS

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