ECE Funding Cuts and YOU

How are you getting on with filling your sheet for the petition about the early childhood education funding cuts? Each sheet only has 10 lines, so yourself and 9 others! There are more sheets pinned to the noticeboard for you to take if you can get more than 10 signatures. You have until the 18 May (so that they can be in Wellington by 20 May). The goal is to get 70,000 signatures nationwide - prior to the rally in Hastings I heard that there were only 22,000 signatures so still quite a way to go!

There is a huge amount of research that clearly shows that quality early childhood education makes an enormous difference for children's success later in life. It has been estimated that $1 of government funding spent on quality early childhood education saves between $11 and $20 spent on health, welfare and justice. One of the indicators of quality early childhood education is qualified teachers, however the government has said that 80% of registered teachers is all that is now required and has pegged the funding back to this level. Would you accept 80% registered teachers in schools? Yet by the time your child gets to school 90% of their brain is already formed.

We are doing all we can to absorb these funding cuts without raising fees. We are trimmed to the bone and any further cuts would be critical. If the government gets the idea (or already has the idea) that we, teachers and parents, have accepted the cuts, then we can be sure there will be more to come - or other more insidious moves such as the changes due to take effect from 1 July to increase the maximum permitted license size from 50 to 150 children and from 25 to 75 under 2s (with no requirement that these children be split into smaller groups). Also for under 2s there only has to be one 'person responsible' (registered teacher) for 50 children - the rest could be school leavers on the minimum wage. Does this sound like putting the best interests of the child first - I don't think so!

New Zealand has led the world with early childhood research and our curriculum, Te Whariki. Please don't let us lead the world with these backward fiscal measures.

Irene