Election year promises

Early childhood education is poised for a major overhaul in the next 10 years — if the Labour-led Government is returned in the September 19 election.

Historically, the sector has been transformed twice before by Labour governments: in 1989, when Geoffrey Palmer started subsidising all childcare not just in kindergartens; and in 2007, when Helen Clark started funding 20 hours a week free for children aged

3 and 4.

Jacinda Ardern is not offering anything quite so radical. But her

2019 Early Learning Plan proposes to give the sector an extra $5.5 billion over the next 10 years, implying a funding boost of around

30 per cent a year by 2029 on top of the $2 billion a year that taxpayers now give it.

The major proposals are:

● Restoring a higher funding rate for early childhood education (ECE) services with 100 per cent qualified teachers from next January, and requiring all teachers to be qualified by 2029.

● Improving staff/child ratios from 1:5 to 1:4 for under-2-yearolds from the middle of this decade, and from 1:10 to 1:5 for

2-year-olds by late in the decade.

● Implementing “a mechanism that improves the levels and consistency of teachers’ salaries” across the sector. Pay hikes of up to 9.6 per cent from July 1 were described as just a first step towards putting all qualified teachers on the same scale.

Regardless of the election outcome, any new government will have to keep closing the pay gap. The higher salaries available in kindergartens, coming on top of a teacher shortage, are forcing private centres to pay more, and that will force them to raise fees for parents unless taxpayers help out.

A National Party education discussion document issued last November proposes to “lift minimum-pay requirements for qualified ECE staff ”.

However, National’s ECE spokesperson Nicola Willis has said requiring all ECE teachers to be qualified is “unrealistic”.

“There are about 10,000 experienced educators currently working in ECE without formal teaching qualifications. It makes no sense to exclude them when there is such a dire lack of educators available,” she said.

National has also made no promises to improve ECE teacher/ child ratios. Instead, its discussion document focuses on improving quality through more spot checks of ECE centres. It has also promised to abolish teacher registration fees.

At the last election Labour’s support partners NZ First and the Greens both supported restoring a higher funding rate for 100 per cent qualified teachers, and NZ First supported improving the staffing ratio for under-2s.

The Act Party would give every child $12,000 a year from the age of 2 in a student education account which can be used immediately or saved.