Early Childhood Council welcomes requirement for parents on benefits to ensure their children attend early childhood
education 15 hours a week from the age of three
New Zealand’s largest representative body of licensed early childhood centres has welcomed a government decision that
requires parents on benefits to ensure their children attend early childhood education 15 hours a week from the age of
three.
Early Childhood Council CEO Peter Reynolds said today (12 September) that educational underachievement had many complex
causes. But access to high-quality early childhood education was ‘without doubt, an essential part of the solution’.
It was a fact that children living on benefits and not attending early childhood education were amongst the most likely
to arrive at school unprepared to learn, and to stay behind for the rest of their lives, Mr Reynolds said.
‘From this point of view early childhood education can be viewed as an inoculation for multiple diseases, with these
diseases including low achievement at school, criminality, unemployment, and poverty as an adult.’
The requirement to ensure children attend early childhood education had the potential to rescue hundreds of thousands of
children from educational underachievement, ‘and the nightmare that could follow from that’.
It was, said Mr Reynolds, ‘one of the most important welfare reforms in recent years’, and was likely to start changing
lives the week it was implemented.
Mr Reynolds said he hoped many beneficiary families would find their way to
‘community hubs’ that offered both education and care for children, and support for families.
The positive impact of early childhood education would be limited if children went home to families struggling for want
of a bit of help, he said.
‘The need therefore is to use early childhood education to not only educate at-risk children, but to educate and support
their families as well.’
Early childhood education centres were the logical place to establish a range of family services, because many parents
trusted their early childhood centres, and saw them as a natural part of their lives, Mr Reynolds said.
The Early Childhood Council had two reservations about the policy, he said. ‘We are not completely comfortable with the
idea of compelling parents to put their children into early childhood education, but believe the benefits too compelling
to resist.
‘And we have concerns regarding beneficiaries who might have difficulties with transport and no access to early
childhood education in their neighbourhood. It would be unfair to cut benefits for such people. And we would be amongst
the first to speak out should this occur.’
The Early Childhood Council has more than 1100 member centres, about 30% of which are community-owned and about 70% of
which are commercially owned. Its members employ more than 7000 staff, and care for tens of thousands of children.