‘More education funding needed’

Opposition party candidates called for an overhaul in education funding at an election candidates’ meeting in Dannevirke.

The Wairarapa electorate hopefuls faced a small but passionate audience of 20 voters and New Zealand Educational Institute members on Wednesday.

The Wairarapa electorate stretches from north of Dannevirke down to the bottom of the North Island’s east coast, and includes Woodville, Pahiatua and Eketahuna.

Labour candidate Kieran Mcanulty said in real terms, early childhood education fees have risen by 25 per cent on average since National came to power nine years ago.

‘‘In an area like Dannevirke, which has disproportionately more low-income families, it has actually become a barrier to getting something that is so crucial to their child.’’

Part of the issue was the reduction of funding levels for early-childhood centres, which forced them to hire teachers who weren’t fully qualified., he said

Mcanulty said that meant the sector’s workforce was restricted, and providers had to turn to unqualified teachers to save money or raise their fees. Labour wanted to return funding to its previous levels.

‘‘This Government likes to look at everything as a business, but there’s not many businesses that would go to an unqualified accountant.’’

Wairarapa National MP Alastair Scott said there wasn’t necessarily a drop in quality just because some early-childhood staff weren’t fully-qualified teachers, particularly if they had a specialist skill.

He said his partner Robyn Noble-campbell hadn’t gone to teachers college, but did a lot of good as a tutor for dyslexic children. ‘‘I don’t believe one has to be a fully-qualified teacher to contribute to the learning of a child through early-childhood centres or through these more focused programmes.’’

Another point of concern among candidates was making sure schools had enough funding for support staff and teacher aids.

New Zealand First candidate Ron Mark said he had seen firsthand how important support staff were to schools, so he was fully behind his party’s calls for a review into resource funding for schools.

Mark said if National kept on cutting or freezing schools’ funding, as it has in the past, it would lead to a $200-300 million shortfall in education funding.

‘‘You can’t keep doing that and boasting you’ve got a surplus.

‘‘The surplus is mythical. The surplus is absolute concrete evidence that you’ve underfunded services.’’

Green Party candidate John Hart said schools shouldn’t have to make the hard choices many were facing between adequate levels of support staff and their other needs.

‘‘We will increase operational funding to schools so they don’t have to look to external sources or internal shuffling of funding to make these things happen.’’

The institute’s Southern Hawke’s Bay branch president Will Knight said he was pleasantly surprised all four candidates took the time to attend.

‘‘That was a very positive sign about how serious they all are about education and the electorate. I was very impressed by the calibre of responses from the candidates.’’

The institute is a trade union for education staff.

‘‘I don’t believe one has to be a fully-qualified teacher to contribute to the learning of a child...’’ National MP Alastair Scott