Budget no help to early childhood education

A reduction in funding for early childhood education announced in last week's Budget will mean cut the quality of services offered in some regions, according to Associate Professor of Early Years Education, Claire McLachlan.

Dr McLachlan, from the University's College of Education, says the cuts followed a reduction in professional development funds to early childhood centres in last year's Budget, which also ceased research funding and signalled cuts to requirement levels of qualified staff.

She says the changes, combined with higher gst for services, will impact negatively on families and children. “It was clear that the Government wants the biggest bang for their buck and this budget makes it clear that the middle income earners are expected to pay their way on all fronts.

"The early childhood education cost adjustment argues that by increasing operational funding it will offset the cost of fees for parents, but centres that are already staffed to 100 per cent will have a significant reduction in funding that this adjustment is unlikely to match. There is an implicit cost to parents who choose to enrol children in centres with a high ratio of qualified staff."

Dr McLachlan says the recognition of teachers with primary, or overseas qualifications as early childhood teachers makes a mockery of early childhood education. “Currently, few primary teacher education qualifications include anything to do with Te Whariki, the early childhood curriculum, or learning development in children under the age of five and, in particular, anything to do with infants and toddlers. There is also an enormous variety in the quality and amount of teacher education that overseas teachers have had. Proper instruction in the New Zealand curriculum and the cultural context of teaching in New Zealand is crucial. It all means centres will have to work significantly harder to protect and promote the long term social, economic and personal outcomes that effective early childhood education can achieve.”

Dr McLachlan says the further reduction of funding and scrapping of incentives to have registered staff is a significant loss, which will see centres funded at less than 80 per cent in future. “This also means a direct cost to parents, as the loss of 20 per cent of funding to centres in the 80-100 per cent registration bracket will have to come from somewhere.

“In reality, centres that haven’t wanted to employ qualified staff have avoided doing this as long as possible. Those with a strong profit motive, rather than quality motive, will have little cause to look for high quality staff, while centres that believe in the importance of qualified staff will have to pass costs on to families or make cuts in other areas, such as resourcing, professional development and equipment.”

Dr McLachlan says changes in tertiary education commission funding have already been impacting on all teacher education programmes, with some having to cap enrolments.