Crackdown signalled for in-home educators
Home-based early childhood educators have reacted cautiously to a government review of its industry, including a controversial look at whether contractors should be directly employed instead.
Education Minister Chris Hipkins released some findings last week from a review of the fast-growing home-based early childhood education sector.
Key issues included pay and the transparency of fees for parents. Many educators work as contractors, claiming back electricity and other costs, while the company they work for sometimes keeps a government subsidy paid per child.
Depending on the rate educators received, ‘‘it is possible for them to earn less than the minimum wage unless they are caring for four children’’, the ministry document said.
‘‘Further, there have been instances where educators have received vouchers instead of money.’’
However, Susan Phua, president of the New Zealand Homebased Childcare Association, said if contracted educators became employees, they could end up on the minimum wage.
‘‘For some educators, they can set their own rates and others have their rates set for them. For some educators, they can be earning – if they’ve got four children at any one time, they can earn up to – say, $24 an hour.’’
Phua said making educators direct employees could have a flow-on effect for parents, the service provider and the Ministry of Education.
‘‘It’s a model that hasn’t really been tested in the home-based market,’’ she said.
‘‘And for some educators, they choose to only have one or two children for some parts of the day, so obviously if you’re paying say the minimum wage for one child, how does that work across the whole day?’’
However, she did believe there were ways to ensure that educators’ pay could be fair, ‘‘even under the contactor system’’.
Another proposal, to require home-based educators to have at least a level 4 qualification, received more support. Seventy per cent of all educators have no early childhood teaching qualifications and work without another adult present.
‘‘We’ve always seen that there’s a place for qualifications and that they’re leading to a pathway [ultimately, to a degree],’’ Phua said.
Another service provider, Porse, said it had always backed training and offered free online level 4 courses to all its educators.
‘‘What we also know first hand is how much of an investment is required to support quality,’’ Porse’s education and training general manager, Erin Maloney, said.
‘‘We’re keen to understand more about how the Government are going to support the sector to achieve the benchmarks that the proposals put forward around minimum qualifications and delivery standards.’’
Phua’s group said it was conducting a survey of its members to find out how educators would be affected by the proposals.
Many more children are in home-based early childhood education since the industry was first regulated in the early 1990s.
Last year 18,440 children attended a home-based service, about 9 per cent of all children in early childcare. The sector receives about $156 million a year in government funding.
Home-based educators argue that a big advantage of their service is the small child-to-carer ratio. Currently a home-based educator can have up to four children in their care, as well as their own, but the ministry document suggests that in future this number should include an educator’s children.
Other proposals include health and safety regulation and increasing the number of supervisor visits. Consultation on the changes closes on September 24.