The Nats were looking decidedly uncomfortable today about their plans for to cut funding for early childhood education in May’s budget.
Both TV1 and TV3 covered this story that the Government was hoping to bury in the budget day haze that will surround the taxation issue.
Remember, you heard it on Red Alert first, when I blogged on their plans for funding cuts to ECE last week.
Great.
Another move that will get a level of support. This was always a con when Labour Introduced 20 hours free that was of course never free for two reasons –
1. At best it was subsidised – not free
2. Nothing is free – someone has to pay – and when the country is running up hundreds of millions of debt per month then hard decisions need to be made.
Slowly National is undoing the policies of Labour as they are proving too unaffordable for the country. They are making steady progress without frightening the horses and judging by the recent polls they are doing a good job.
I understand thay Labour must hate the de-construction of their policies – but one way or another the budgets need to be balanced and this is just another small step on that road.
I heard you at Question Time Sue(great), and the answers were rather strange. As were Key answers. Almost as though he was looking around to sort out which audience to give an answer to suit.He wasn’t grinning??? If it is as Anne Tolley says that none of the 20 hours to be cut then they must have a different way of cutting. The 20 hours Funding is only part of the whole cost so what other way is there to rob Peter to pay Paul?
There are lies, True lies, damn lies and then there are National MP’s who are just liars.
They have attempted to lay blame on increasing costs but don’t include the growing number of children involved in the analysis. More BS from a hatchet lady.
Total ignore of the reason the scheme was set up to broaden the base for child education.
Yet money is wasted in unnecessary ranking of kids and schools. A chance to bash unions, appeal to private education and promote further inequity.
A dollar spent on education reaps benefits many times over in both social and economic capital.
I notice they are still getting their spin out there.
“The cost has risen over the last 5 years”
Of course it has as the policy was changed to expand the usage 5 years ago.
Just as well there are sound bites of National ministers supporting the new policy – before the election
“1. At best it was subsidised – not free
2. Nothing is free – someone has to pay – and when the country is running up hundreds of millions of debt per month then hard decisions need to be made. ”
Agreed, we do this for the agriculture/farming sector too.
Yes we need to have old people doing their own cleaning and falling while doing it, we need their mental health to suffer too, then we need to get women out of the workforce, taking care of their children, because they can’t afford childcare, and hope their marriages survive because then they will be on DPB and we dont want that we want them working… and round and round and round…
Interesting to see the selected objects of all these cuts… the weakest amongst us, and those who have ended their earning life, have paid us their taxes, and now are just a cost!
I am reminded of that joke/game when you are in the car…. Swerve to not hit the teenager or 20-30 year olds, less points if you hit them cos they are earners, but aim for the old people.
“They are making steady progress without frightening the horses and judging by the recent polls they are doing a good job.” – I couldn’t've put it better myself
The elderly thing is terrible.
And it’s awful that some women (and men) stay in their marriages for the sake of the kids. 
Well it was free in some private centres and certainly at kindergartens who are one of Tolleys targets.
The two main areas they have looked at are targeting so that middle income kiwis pay more or just reducing or freezing the rates which puts up fees.
What may happen is that 20 Hours funding is frozen, as Trevor has mentioned above, but not cut, and that the area that is cut is the top funding band, which means that services will not receive more funding for having a higher proportion of trained and registered teachers working with children.
Currently services have a significant financial incentive to increase the number of trained and registered teachers on their staff. However the Govt has in recent times reduced the requirements around registered teachers, despite the fact that it is well-established that having qualified teaching staff is a key factor in providing high quality early childhood education.
So what will happen if they do cut the funding rates the encourage services to have 80% or more of their staff as trained and registered teachers is that centres that do have 80% plus will need to cover the funding cut by increasing fees to parents. Or alternatively they can drop the number of qualified teachers and replace them with untrained people. Either way it will mean that access to quality early childhood education becomes an “optional extra” that whanau have to pay for, as opposed to the right of every child.
Lovely thing here is that National Standards for 1 year at school are largely unobtainable * this with a lot of children attending ECE centres. Now Tolley and Key are reducing the likelihood that children entering schools will have had ECE.
*last year my school had just over 17% of all children not reading at the expected level at years end, of those 62% of those needing extra help were in Years 1 & 2 – they arrived with a lot of work needing to be done. As our Year 6 children left us only 2 were not reading at the level expected at their age. This shows, I hope, that our school does an excellent job at teaching children from all walks of life and who come to to us with a wide range of skills and experiences. We are decile 1a by the way, 92% Maori, and rural. Probably failures under Nat Standards
National Standards – a topic that has gone away? Lost?
And yes I am working at my computer, on school work, at 11.03 at night.
National Standards are unfortunately here to stay until either a change in govt or a public outcry resulting from a teacher strike or similar upset to educaion.
I believe ECE 20hours are virtually self funding if you look at the savings made by another adult having the ability to be a taxpayer or do voluntary work, or simply stay out of the health system because they get a break from the children. Hats off to ’stay-at-home’ mums but I couldn’t cope without the break that ECE funding allows. Additionally having children well prepared for school decreases the burden on the school system as outlined by Paul3.
If the children didn’t go to daycare on Tuesdays, I would go stir crazy. Need the ECE or I wouldn’t be able to study. National standards are not a good thing Paul 3 and I agree that it helps to have had some ECE before they start school. It shows the Govt think that Education is just not important.
@Paul 3.
National Standards – a topic that has gone away? Lost?
I really hope not. Its still really important. I hope that the issue will be back and in peoples minds.
Don’t be surprised if homebased childcare is the Ministry’s new target for funding cuts. Our homebased childcare service has experienced this prior to the budget.
Thanks to government funding cuts to ECE our Kindergarten in our small low socio economic area (Murupara) in which children need this service is closing it has been open and serving a community for almost 30 years and now it is not “finacially sustainable” when did the future of our children become all about the mighty dollar these are our future leaders, movers and shakers dont they deserve the best start to education? We are all sadened by this closure as this town has had enough of its fair share of dare i say crap and this is just another nail in its coffin i have asked parents what will they do with thier children after the 16th Dec 2010 all have said they will just keep them home, how sad is that those children will have no ECE experience at all. We do have 5-6 Kohanga in this town but these are not suited to many of our children, i have spoken to the minisrty and was told that there is also an Educare centre, if these people took the time to come and see the services available in Murupara they would see that apart from 1 Kohanga who do a great job for the Maori children who will go on to attend the Kura the other ECE services in this town are poor quality and i wouldnt send my cat there let alone my child. The kindergarten was high quality with the head teacher being there for alomst 26 years the children who have come through the kindy have thrived and gone on to do well in school. Now we have been told its all over maybe if more money was spent in the ECE sector we wouldnt have the need to spend $70,000 per inmate in our over crowded prisons. I will be carefully considering where my vote goes at the next election as will all our other kindergarten parents. “HELP SAVE OUR LITTLE KINDERGARTEN”