Childcare business forced to shut
Officials blame rule breaches but firm’s boss says it’s racism
Officials have shut down a home-based early childhood education business after it repeatedly breached rules — including failing to fulfil the “education” part of its mandate.
The Ministry of Education cancelled Oak Tree Home Care’s six licences in June, saying it was warned about its failure to meet strict standards but it still did not comply.
However, the business says it was targeted because the Government is “racist” and doesn’t want Chinese people running home-based care.
The shut-down comes two years after Oak Tree had to repay the ministry $200,000 due to overcharging. At that time it said it had mistakenly employed educators without ensuring they had a work visa.
Documents show Oak Tree, which allowed children of mainly Asian ethnicity to be educated in their own language, was granted a licence in 2015, but came to the attention of officials soon afterwards because of financial irregularities.
The company was switched to “provisional” licences while it worked to fix its compliance issues, but continued to be the subject of complaints.
After an investigation, the ministry said the company had systemic issues with licensing criteria, regulations and funding rules.
This included grandparents claiming funding for children who lived with them — which was not allowed — and educators who did not meet curriculum requirements. There were never safety concerns. Up to 20 educators, and 80 children, come under the supervision of a coordinator (a qualified ECE teacher) who must check in once a week and visit once a month. There are two types of home-based ECE: quality and standard. Quality means all educators must have at least a Level 3 qualification. Standard means no qualification is required. Grandparents are allowed to become educators but cannot live at the same address as those they care for. Any home-based educator has to deliver the Te Whariki early-learning curriculum, have a first-aid certificate and be police-vetted. Their house has to meet health and safety standards. Home-based care is funded at a maximum of $9.27 an hour per child.
“Early childhood education providers are required to meet our high standards,” the ministry’s deputy secretary Katrina Casey said. “That’s why we have taken firm action on complaints . . . about Oak Tree.”
But Oak Tree’s owner, Anna Zhang, said the ministry shut her down only because officials “were racist” and didn’t want Chinese or Indians run- ning early childhood education. She showed the Herald legal documents which alleged the ministry had misread cultural cues and used inexperienced translators when doing home visits, leading to incorrect assumptions about the education occurring.
She claimed Oak Tree was not given details of the complaints nor time to respond.
Zhang wanted to take the Government to court, but could not afford it despite selling her house, she said.
In total there were 15 complaints about Oak Tree. The ministry said although the company did not owe it any money, it was still considering whether further action was required based on the findings of its inquiry. It would not say if the case had been referred to the Serious Fraud Office.
As of 2015, 25,000 children were in the “standard” stream of homebased care, where their carers can be paid $9 an hour per child despite lacking a qualification.