Funding cuts to the sector means teacher lead services have had to cut the ratio of qualified teachers to stay financially secure. Furthermore there has been an increase in the amount of fundraises an ECE centre or ECE lead service are pressured to undertake. Kindergartens maintain they will continue to aim for 100 percent qualified staff but they have been forced to increase their hourly rate and have less contact hour time which is important to effectively plan to ensure quality experiences are promoted with children, extending their learning and understanding. Early childhood experiences are the foundations for children’s future learning. ECE centres have already got long hours of opening times and have been pressured to make some fully qualified staff redundant and employ unqualified individuals in order to be financially stable. A qualified ECE teacher trains a minimum of three years, during this time they gain both theoretical and ethical understanding; awareness of children’s potential learning and development and how this can be supported and extended working alongside the New Zealand curriculum: Te Whāriki. Furthermore teachers learn to provide an inclusive education bi-culturally that promotes inclusive practices which respect diversity and promote an anti-bias environment.
ØDo we just want anyone working in ECE without this potential understanding to extend and support children’s learning?
üWe need to promote quality experiences for children with funding that supports and values our teachers in ECE or teacher lead services.
References:
Dau, E. (2001). (Ed.). Theanti-bias approach in early childhood (2nd ed.). Frenchs Forest, Australia: Pearson.
Ministry of Education. (1996). Te Whᾱriki: He Whᾱriki Mᾱtauranga mō ngᾱ mokopuna o Aotearoa/Early childhood curriculum. Wellington: Learning Media.
First the 20 hour policy was seen as a positive policy as it promoted pay equity between staff as the role of quality staff was being promoted.
With the change of government from Labour, National now was in power and they reviewed the current finances and budgeting for the ECE sector.National decided that ECE did not need to be allocated as much funding because the other sectors of education were seen as being more important, this included primary and secondary schools. By contrast Labour valued and recognised the importance of quality ECE for children. Trevor Mallard the Labour educational minister developed the ECE teacher resource Pathways to the Future: Ngā Hurahi Arataki (2002), this resource was to promote quality through a strategic plan (ten year plan) across all ECE sectors with a special focus on Māori and Pasifika children by the year 2012. This plan recognised the value of New Zealand’s history in ECE, diversity, professional development in ECE and qualified educators; lastly it recognised the importance of ECE to a child’s “foundation for ongoing learning” (Ministry of Education, 2002, p. 4).The 20 hours policy re-enforced how ECE educators were valued aligning with the strategic plan.
National’s change in perspective resulted in large funding cuts across the ECE sector. This leaves many questions such as:
oWhere does this leave infants and toddlers in ECE?
oWith such large funding cuts where are ECE sectors going to get the funding to continue paying qualified staff as well as providing great learning opportunities for children?
The Act party describes Labour’s purpose for creating the ‘20 hours free policy’ as being a target approach to gaining votes (an election bribe by Labour). The 20 hour policy had little research when it began and many ECE centres were rebelling against using the policy. The National government maintained that the introduction of the policy would not affect regulations and legislations of the ECE centres; this implied the functionality of the ECE centres would not be affected.
Anne Tolleys argument for lowering the percentage from 100 percent qualified staff by 2012 to 80 percent is described as being a more achievable outcome for ECE, she also discusses how ECE centres are struggling to maintain a minimum of 50 percent qualified staff and there are only 64 percent of qualified registered teachers working in teacher lead services in ECE. This is ignoring the fact that centres have invested a lot of time and money to improve the quality standards of ECE; management, staff and encourage the participation of children in quality ECE centres that are beneficial for both children and supportive of their parents, ngā whānau for the 100percent qualified staff ratio.
This is a following video on Anne Tolleys discussion surrounding funding cuts to ECE:
National has put together anECE taskforceto see where further cuts to funding can be made across the ECE sector. Teachers had little knowledge of this taskforce till it had already been formed. Soon after the ECE taskforce was created there have been funding cuts of up to 400 million dollars to the sector. Policy changes meant that parents would also need to top up these additional costs in ECE which are no longer funded by the government. National explains with a large increase towards funding (Labour being in power) in the last five years cuts need to be made. National have avoided taking into consideration Labour’s previous target funding was towards improving quality outcomes in ECE. Additionally they had an increase of up to 50 percent attendance for infants, toddlers and young children. Furthermore Nationals taskforce evaluation (resulting in large funding cuts to ECE) can be contributed to the target funding towards the 20 hour policy.
National are currently investigating ways to reduce funding costs of the policy and decrease the hours covered by the policy. National’s approaches have already changed Labours desired outcome of having 100 percent qualified staff with a payment of $12.45 an hour per child down to $10.88 per child with 80 percent qualified staff by National initiatives.
Commodification of ECE can be a result of insufficient funding and the idea to make money off the sector rather than invest in measurable quality across all ECE sectors. In my opinion National is heading towards this direction through treating the early childhood sector as a business rather than an investment in our future.
The 20 hour policy was presented as a ‘free’ opportunity for parents to have their children attend quality childcare settings. New Zealand government has financially not been able to sustain the costs covered by the policy so therefore have cut government funding across the sector.
What this means for parents: if their child attends a teacher lead service additional donations would be expected of parents outside of the six hours allocated per day to make up the 20 hours of the policy. Children that had been attending ECE for one day a week now increased to the 20 hours in order for parents to gain the ‘free’ subsidy. Parents have a choice to whether they would like to make donations to the ECE services. But once they agreed to donate to ECE it would be expected for them to continue to make these donations. The ECE services could also re-enforce legally these donations and if parents chose to not make any donations to ECE.
In Addition, hours required beyond the allocated 20 hours for the children, parents could be left out of pocket due to the large increase of charges to having their children attend ECE.
Mrs Armstrong (an unhappy parent) “wants to see the Educational Ministry to check that the policy is being administered as intended and whether costs charged by some providers are justified” (Fisher, 2010, p.1) as her daughter was going to be charged seventy dollars for an additional hour in care beyond the subsidised maximum of hours allocated per day.
The term 20 hours free policy was misleading and misrepresented by labour. They justified the term by discussing how any child should have the freedom to have access to quality education. Parents still think of the term 20 hour policy as being the ‘20 hours free policy’.
Furthermore a donation to the ECE service implies it is a freedom of choice to give money of any value to the service not a compulsory fee which is otherwise being enforced by ECE, teacher lead services. Government legislations are not effectively supporting parents or management in ECE and clearly the 20 hour policy is not working.
References
Bushouse, B. K. (2009). The 20 hours (free) programme: Important choices ahead for New Zealand’s new government. Policy Quarterly, 5(1), 58-63. Retrieved April 20, from ips.ac.nz/publications/files/596ae740f62.pdf
Fisher, A. (2010, August 9). Hour of childcare can cost $70; 20 hours free policy blamed for charges. Dominion Post. Retrieved from Index New Zealand Database.
Hann (2007, p.1) states “Early-childhood centres will be subsidised by the Government for the 20 hours of free childcare a week, at a rate ranging from $4.09 to $10.60”. Nationals funding per child for the hourly rate is barely covering the minimum running costs, therefore teacher lead services are justifying by adding large additional costs for extra hourly rates. In addition if parents, ngā whānau choose not to have their children attending teacher lead services for the 20 hours (a maximum of six hours in a day) and want their child to attend seven hours of care in one day costs can be dramatically increased. Research in early childhood education (ECE) has found centres have been adding additional costs to the ECE services by charging up to fifty cents per hour per child with extra food costs and other additional costs.
The Auckland Kindergarten Association (AKA) has joined the 20 hour policy and they discussed how parents were led to believe by the government that the 20 hours policy is free for all children aged three and four years. This is not the case as funding still needs to be received through fundraisers and donations. The AKA have been charging per child up to one dollar an hour in the kindergarten setting. Although some centres do agree with using the 20 hour policy New Zealand’s Early childhood Council disagrees and they are urging ECE centres to not provide this service as it can lower the availability to quality ECE.
Farquhar predicted when the 20 hour policy began in 2007 that if parents could not pay the additional optional costs it could create a two tier system of quality ECE lead services. This is creating a wider gap of availability to quality ECE services for people of a lower socio-economic status, which was the purpose of the policy originally to make ECE services more accessible.Currently the government has cut the funding to ECE lead services and lowered the percentage of teachers that need to be qualified in working in ECE. Labour was aiming for 100 percent qualified by the year 2012, National have brought this down to 80 percent.This has also had a large impact on ECE and how qualified ECE teachers are respected and valued financially for their contribution to their role in promoting children’s learning and development.
References:
Bushouse, B. K. (2009). The 20 hours (free) programme: Important choices ahead for New Zealand’s new government. Policy Quarterly, 5(1), 58-63. Retrieved April 20, from ips.ac.nz/publications/files/596ae740f62.pdf
In 2008 the National party proposed in their election promises to include Kōhanga Reo and Play-centres, to increase targeted funding over seven years from July 2010. In addition to make the six hour daily limit more flexible for parents, the National party planned to include five year olds as well as three to four year olds to enable parents more access to allocated funding. They also discussed how the term 20 hours “free” was misleading so therefore they would need to change the name to the 20 hours policy.
When National was elected into government their proposed policies were put forward to invest in ECE 20 hours. But because of economic recession and the priority the government puts on increased participation for example “Māori, Pasifika, and children from low socio-economic areas” (Early childhood services funding, 2009) their top priority was directing their funds towards this rather than the 20 hours policy.
I feel this video clip captures the political discussion in cabinet effectively and demonstrates how the current changes towards the 20 hours policy are debated.
The “20 hours policy” otherwise known as the “20 hours free policy”, was introduced by the Labour Government on the 2nd of July 2007, just before the general election.
The 20 hours free policy was aimed at making early childhood education (ECE) more accessible and affordable for all parents/caregivers. This policy funding was directed at quality teacher lead (qualified or registered teachers) ECE services for young children aged three to five years old. Young children would qualify for up to twenty hours a week of funded early childhood care no matter what their parents/caregivers income was or ethnic group they belonged to.
To find out more about the definition of the 20 hours free policy and what it set out to do, please click on this following link:http://www.beehive.govt.nz/node/29928 and download theFAQ 20 Hours Free ECE.pdf file. Reference
Clark, H. (2007). Celebrate the start of 20 hours free ECE. Retrieved March 6, from http://www.beehive.govt.nz/node/29928
I have chosen to discuss the 20 hours policy as I feel this is an important social issue effecting the development of quality early childhood education services.
