Budget Cuts to the Smallest People

Tuesday 15 June 2010
Dear Parents
Below is an explanation of the recent budget cuts that impact on Early Childhood Education. As with much Government Policy the devil is in the detail, this has been so with recent Government Funding cuts that will impact on you and your families.

WHAT HAS HAPPENED?
• The government has made huge funding cuts to early childhood education services from February next year. Affected services are facing cuts of up to 13%.
• The cuts will affect 93,000 children enrolled in 2000 early childhood services. That’s just over half the children that are currently enrolled in early childhood education in New Zealand.
• Services with the most qualified staff have been targeted, those that employ 80 – 100% qualified teachers.
• The government has also cut support for training, and had signalled that it may cut support for newly qualified teachers to support them in their first two years.
NZEI strongly opposes these cuts. We are calling for the immediate reinstatement of the funding and for the target of 100% qualified and registered teachers.
WHAT THIS MEANS
• Bad for children and families
Early childhood education may cost more and pressure will be placed on services to reduce quality to make up for the cuts. Some services have committed not to raise fees but will have to find ways of reducing costs or increasing revenue through activities such as fundraising. Where there are fee increases then children may no longer be able to attend if the family cannot afford it.

• Devalues teaching and children’s learning
Children learn the most in their first years of life. It is essential that they are cared for by teachers who understand and respond to their needs and those of their families. Children need qualified teachers, so that not just their physical safety and care is ensured, but also their emotional and intellectual development.

• A bad investment decision
Early childhood education is an investment, and in fact one of the best investments any government can make. It provides a return of up to $13 for every dollar spent.

The quality of early childhood education for your child could suffer. The Prime Minister has said that services should “solve” the problem of funding cuts by “shedding” qualified teachers and replacing them with unqualified staff. This could lead to children receiving lower quality education and care.

Qualified teachers and our in training teachers know how to develop relationships with young children and babies so that they can thrive, grow and learn in an early childhood environment. They watch, listen and talk with your child and work to get to know your family to gain a rich understanding of your child’s learning and emotional needs.

They guide learning to match your child’s own experience, personality and interests.
They understand how to link your child’s early learning to reading, writing and maths as they talk alongside them in the sandpit or ask them questions about the picture they’re painting. Qualified teachers provide your child with the building blocks they need to be successful
learners at school and into the future. That’s what quality early childhood education is all about!

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
1. Why has there been such an increase in government spending on early childhood education in the last 10 years?
Funding for early childhood education used to be extremely low, so the quality of services and participation of children varied. The increased funding has been spent on increasing participation and increasing quality. There has been a 50% increase in enrolments between 1990 and 2009. Quality has also improved enormously – with the move to qualified teachers who deliver the world leading early childhood curriculum Te Whāriki.
New Zealand still spends less than the OECD average on early childhood education.
2. Why do you need a fully qualified workforce, isn’t 80% qualified and registered teachers in each centre enough?
Research consistently shows that to have good outcomes for children early childhood education must be high quality. A fully qualified teaching team is strongly associated with achieving high quality early childhood education.
3. Why is participation low amongst Maori and Pasifika children?
It is misleading to say that there is low participation amongst Māori and Pasifika children. Participation of Māori and Pacific children has steadily increased over the past five years:
• 91.4% of Māori children now participate (an 8.5% increase)
• 85.4% of Pacific children now participate (a 17.5% increase)
It is important to fund initiatives that will support the participation of those children who are not currently receiving any early childhood education, but the amount of money being spent on new initiatives is small ($91.5million) compared to the amount that is being cut ($400 million).
4. Don’t the cuts only affect the wealthy families?
There are many community-based services in low decile areas that have made the
commitment to hire qualified teachers to provide the best quality for the children. These services will be severely impacted by the funding cuts. If these services do have to increase fees children may no longer be able to attend, or may have to attend for fewer hours.
5. What are the benefits of early childhood education?
Children who have had sustained regular participation in early childhood education start school ready to learn. They are more ready to take part in formal classroom programmes, and have a better grasp of literacy and numeracy. They also have better social skills, better oral communication, and a better understanding of what school is about, and how to take part. There are few areas that create a better return for government. Research shows for every $1 spent in high quality ECE there is a $13 return because students are more likely to stay at school longer, be successful at school, move into employment and be productive citizens.

In targeting the Centres for whom quality matters, the Government knows that these centres will do everything they can to minimise the impact on children and families. The reality is that we must make changes. We now need to review our teaching staff (there will be no redundancies at Natural Steps), child/teacher ratios, operational costs, extra costs (nappies, Playball, Music) and parent’s fees. We have no idea of the wider impacts but we will keep you all informed as things come to light.

If you feel so inclined, please email the Minister of Education, Anne Tolley at a.tolley@ministers.govt.nz. As your silence is read as acceptance.

You might like to ask her why she thinks your children do not need teachers that are qualified?
Or, why the government is penalising Centres who have shown a commitment to quality?

We welcome all feedback. Email Maria at maria@naturalsteps.co.nz or Michelle at michelle@naturalsteps.co.nz


Kind Regards

Maria and Michelle


Excerpts taken from http://www.nzei.org.nz/site/nzeite/files/ECE/FACT%20SHEET%20ON%20CUTS%20TO%20EARLY%20CHILDHOOD%20EDUCATION.pdf 14 June 2010