What did the Government promise for three and four year olds?
During the run-up to the last General Election, the Labour party announced that:-
“…20 hours free education will be able to be provided for three and four year olds at any licensed teacher-led service in New Zealand from July 2007……Under Labour families accessing these services will be around $90 a week better off (or $4,680 per year) for each child as it reaches the eligible age.”
This was a fantastic promise and many parents were no doubt thrilled at the prospect of some financial help in providing quality early childhood education for their child. Earlier this year, advertising for the scheme began, including TV ads and flyers that were distributed in public kindergartens and elsewhere. The flyers advise:-
“One of the best things you can do for your child is to start their education early- it gives them a strong foundation for learning and life……From 1 July 2007, it will be easier to start your child’s learning early because up to 20 hours of early childhood education will be free for three and four year olds.”
Where can my eligible child receive their 20 hours free early childhood education?
Any child of three and four years old who attends a “teacher-led” Early Childhood Education (ECE) centre or home based service is eligible to receive up to 20 free hours early childhood education. Teacher-led services include public and privately run sessional kindergartens, daycare centres, home based services and some community run centres. Playcentres and most kohanga reo will not be eligible because they are not teacher-led. (It seems that the Government’s intention behind the 20 free hours policy was not just to improve our pre-schoolers’ education, but also to encourage women back to paid work given the current skills shortage in the market.)
The big catch however, is that the centre has to decide whether to opt into the Government’s initiative. At the moment, it seems that a large proportion of providers will not be able to offer the scheme to children attending their centres or service (see below for an explanation as to why this is the case). The big picture will become clearer from 1 July as to exactly how many services will be offering the 20 free hours, but at the moment the uptake looks certain to be disappointing.
The Government has no figures available to show just how many services intend to opt in, so all we have to work from is what we know from the centres that our children attend and from discussions we have had with other parents both locally and elsewhere across the country. The picture looks fairly bleak. This position is backed up by a survey conducted by the Early Childhood Council (ECC) (which represents many independently run kindergartens, daycare providers and some community-run centres), which found:-
“The likely uptake of 20 hours free ECE by early childhood centres was low and likely to get lower…[with] only 23.9% of centres answering ‘yes’ to the question ‘will your centre be opting into the Free ECE?’.”
The ECC has also stated that while only 23.9% of centres had said ‘yes’, 46% remained undecided, with three quarters of those anticipating that they would not participate. It seems that if you live in the city you are more likely to miss out- see below for a breakdown of the survey results for your area:-
Greater Auckland – 12% (North Shore, Waitakere, Auckland and Manukau combined)
Greater Wellington- 29% (Wellington, Porirua, Upper Hutt and Lower Hutt)
Christchurch- 19%
Tauranga –25%
Hamilton 22%
When it comes to the participation of public kindergartens the good news is that many public kindergartens outside Auckland have recently said that they will participate (although they do have some reservations about the funding levels and whether they can continue to function on them, particularly if their overheads go up. However the Auckland Kindergarten Association (AKA) still remains undecided. Around 9,000 children attend the 107 public kindergartens within Auckland (according to the AKA this figure represents about 10% of the children in NZ attending ECE).
Even if all public kindergartens did offer the scheme, it is clear there will still be a huge number of pre-schoolers who will miss out on the 20 free hours because many children are waiting well past their third birthday (in some areas this can be as late as the child’s fourth birthday) to access a public kindergarten place. Therefore the status quo will remain the same and families waiting for places at public kindergartens will therefore have to either:-
a) opt not to send their child to pre-school until they get a place where they can access the 20 hours free; or
b) fund a private kindergarten until a place comes up (see our table below for the cost implications of this.)
The 20 hours free policy should have ensured that families would no longer be faced with this dilemma.
Can the Ministry of Education help me find a service in my area offering the scheme?
Don’t expect any help from the Government’s 0800 20 44 33 number or the TeamUp website in finding a participating service. When we rung the helpline in late March, the call-centre operator was unable to give us any information other than to provide a yellow-pages style breakdown of Early Childhood Education services that existed in a particular area. He did not know that the public kindergartens in Auckland were not participating and was under the impression that all centres given on the list were offering the scheme. That is simply not the case; as the Ministry of Education webpage explains:-
“It will be up to individual services to decide whether to offer Free ECE, so parents need to contact services directly to discuss enrolment and Free ECE”.
This no doubt puts unfair pressure on the Early Childhood Education services themselves as the onus is on them to defend their position to parents who are expecting the 20 free hours for their child.
Why are so many services unwilling to opt into the scheme?
When the Government first announced the 20 hours free scheme, there was much excitement and anticipation amongst early childhood providers. As Helen Clark recently said the plan for 20 free hours a week of pre-school education for 3 and 4 year olds was “one of the most significant extensions to the education system since the introduction of free secondary education in the 1930s”.
However, the bombshell for providers came in the week before Christmas last year, when the Government finally announced the rates that the centres would receive to cover the fees that they currently receive from parents. The Early Childhood Council (ECC) on its website explains that the reason so many centres are not willing to offer the scheme is not because centres disagree with the principle of free early childhood education. Instead, as they explain in their press release dated 1 Feb 2007:-
“Reasons respondents gave for not offering free ECE were that they could not maintain quality with the amount of money the Government was offering, that the rates would not cover their costs, that offering free ECE would send them broke, that costs of administration would be ‘huge’, and that the Government’s proposed voluntary payments from parents were too uncertain to allow for an approach to budgeting that could maintain quality.The most common reason respondents gave for not taking part in 20 free hours was that the funding levels were less than or equal to what they were charging already.‘Most ‘undecided’ respondents indicated they were leaning toward not participating in 20 hours free. They commented on the jeopardy to quality of cutting teacher numbers, the impossibility of making ends meet at the rates announced, the fear free payment rates would not be adjusted for inflation and would erode over time, the fact that voluntary parental payments would not provide enough security of income, and the need for a compulsory top up fee so they could maintain the programmes they were delivering currently.”
According to the ECC, the Government is only offering between $1.02 and $4.60 an hour for services that are currently charged to parents at rates between $2 to $15 an hour. Sue Thorne, Chief Executive of the ECC states:-
‘The bottom line for most centres is as simple as the ABC we teach our children. Most centres, whether community-run or commercially run, will not be able to take up 20 hours free as it stands, because cutting much-loved childcare programmes is against everything they stand for.’Mrs Thorne also said the situation was best in those centres where costs were lowest, and worst in those centres in which costs were highest and 20 hours free was therefore least affordable. ‘Most centres in the rural South Island, for example, are opting in because they can afford to do so without cutting childcare programmes. This is because their land, labour and other costs are low. But in Auckland, for example, land that might cost $50,000 in the rural South Island might cost $500,000 or more. And staff 15% more’
Why is early childhood education so important for my child?
The government on its website reminds us all that “Quality education ensures that every Kiwi regardless of who they are and where they come from can achieve their full potential and contribute to New Zealand's society and economy.”
The results of research recently published by the NZ Council for Educational Research entitled 'Competent Children, Competent Learners' reinforces the importance of effective Early Childhood Education (ECE). As the Minister of Education, Steve Maharey, explains:-"The research shows making early progress in literacy and numeracy is an important factor in determining whether a student remains at school after they turn 16. …It indicates that students who left school before the age of 16 had demonstrated a pattern of poor achievement on the research tests from the age of five.”
There is no doubt that the Government recognises the importance of encouraging as many young children into early childhood education as possible and to that extent we applaud them. As the Ministry of Education website acknowledges:-
“Children don’t benefit from quality ECE if their participation is not intensive enough to create positive education outcomes. New Zealand has high ECE participation rates but children attend for relatively few hours per week, at around 14-17 hours per week for 3 and 4 year olds. That means a lot of children attending 9 hours or fewer per week.”
As we have previously explained, many parents would love to send their child to a pre-school at the age of three, but have been denied this experience due to the high costs of sending a child to a private kindergarten. This situation often arises due to the long waiting time for public kindergarten places (some children do not start until they are nearly four). When the Government made a promise to provide 20 free hours for all three and four year olds, it was effectively offering to solve the problem associated with a shortage of public kindergarten places. Now it seems that families who were expecting financial help to provide an early start to pre-school education for their child may be let down once again. It will no doubt be the children who suffer as we can see from the results of the research above.
During the run-up to the last General Election, the Labour party announced that:-
“…20 hours free education will be able to be provided for three and four year olds at any licensed teacher-led service in New Zealand from July 2007……Under Labour families accessing these services will be around $90 a week better off (or $4,680 per year) for each child as it reaches the eligible age.”
This was a fantastic promise and many parents were no doubt thrilled at the prospect of some financial help in providing quality early childhood education for their child. Earlier this year, advertising for the scheme began, including TV ads and flyers that were distributed in public kindergartens and elsewhere. The flyers advise:-
“One of the best things you can do for your child is to start their education early- it gives them a strong foundation for learning and life……From 1 July 2007, it will be easier to start your child’s learning early because up to 20 hours of early childhood education will be free for three and four year olds.”
Where can my eligible child receive their 20 hours free early childhood education?
Any child of three and four years old who attends a “teacher-led” Early Childhood Education (ECE) centre or home based service is eligible to receive up to 20 free hours early childhood education. Teacher-led services include public and privately run sessional kindergartens, daycare centres, home based services and some community run centres. Playcentres and most kohanga reo will not be eligible because they are not teacher-led. (It seems that the Government’s intention behind the 20 free hours policy was not just to improve our pre-schoolers’ education, but also to encourage women back to paid work given the current skills shortage in the market.)
The big catch however, is that the centre has to decide whether to opt into the Government’s initiative. At the moment, it seems that a large proportion of providers will not be able to offer the scheme to children attending their centres or service (see below for an explanation as to why this is the case). The big picture will become clearer from 1 July as to exactly how many services will be offering the 20 free hours, but at the moment the uptake looks certain to be disappointing.
The Government has no figures available to show just how many services intend to opt in, so all we have to work from is what we know from the centres that our children attend and from discussions we have had with other parents both locally and elsewhere across the country. The picture looks fairly bleak. This position is backed up by a survey conducted by the Early Childhood Council (ECC) (which represents many independently run kindergartens, daycare providers and some community-run centres), which found:-
“The likely uptake of 20 hours free ECE by early childhood centres was low and likely to get lower…[with] only 23.9% of centres answering ‘yes’ to the question ‘will your centre be opting into the Free ECE?’.”
The ECC has also stated that while only 23.9% of centres had said ‘yes’, 46% remained undecided, with three quarters of those anticipating that they would not participate. It seems that if you live in the city you are more likely to miss out- see below for a breakdown of the survey results for your area:-
Greater Auckland – 12% (North Shore, Waitakere, Auckland and Manukau combined)
Greater Wellington- 29% (Wellington, Porirua, Upper Hutt and Lower Hutt)
Christchurch- 19%
Tauranga –25%
Hamilton 22%
When it comes to the participation of public kindergartens the good news is that many public kindergartens outside Auckland have recently said that they will participate (although they do have some reservations about the funding levels and whether they can continue to function on them, particularly if their overheads go up. However the Auckland Kindergarten Association (AKA) still remains undecided. Around 9,000 children attend the 107 public kindergartens within Auckland (according to the AKA this figure represents about 10% of the children in NZ attending ECE).
Even if all public kindergartens did offer the scheme, it is clear there will still be a huge number of pre-schoolers who will miss out on the 20 free hours because many children are waiting well past their third birthday (in some areas this can be as late as the child’s fourth birthday) to access a public kindergarten place. Therefore the status quo will remain the same and families waiting for places at public kindergartens will therefore have to either:-
a) opt not to send their child to pre-school until they get a place where they can access the 20 hours free; or
b) fund a private kindergarten until a place comes up (see our table below for the cost implications of this.)
The 20 hours free policy should have ensured that families would no longer be faced with this dilemma.
Can the Ministry of Education help me find a service in my area offering the scheme?
Don’t expect any help from the Government’s 0800 20 44 33 number or the TeamUp website in finding a participating service. When we rung the helpline in late March, the call-centre operator was unable to give us any information other than to provide a yellow-pages style breakdown of Early Childhood Education services that existed in a particular area. He did not know that the public kindergartens in Auckland were not participating and was under the impression that all centres given on the list were offering the scheme. That is simply not the case; as the Ministry of Education webpage explains:-
“It will be up to individual services to decide whether to offer Free ECE, so parents need to contact services directly to discuss enrolment and Free ECE”.
This no doubt puts unfair pressure on the Early Childhood Education services themselves as the onus is on them to defend their position to parents who are expecting the 20 free hours for their child.
Why are so many services unwilling to opt into the scheme?
When the Government first announced the 20 hours free scheme, there was much excitement and anticipation amongst early childhood providers. As Helen Clark recently said the plan for 20 free hours a week of pre-school education for 3 and 4 year olds was “one of the most significant extensions to the education system since the introduction of free secondary education in the 1930s”.
However, the bombshell for providers came in the week before Christmas last year, when the Government finally announced the rates that the centres would receive to cover the fees that they currently receive from parents. The Early Childhood Council (ECC) on its website explains that the reason so many centres are not willing to offer the scheme is not because centres disagree with the principle of free early childhood education. Instead, as they explain in their press release dated 1 Feb 2007:-
“Reasons respondents gave for not offering free ECE were that they could not maintain quality with the amount of money the Government was offering, that the rates would not cover their costs, that offering free ECE would send them broke, that costs of administration would be ‘huge’, and that the Government’s proposed voluntary payments from parents were too uncertain to allow for an approach to budgeting that could maintain quality.The most common reason respondents gave for not taking part in 20 free hours was that the funding levels were less than or equal to what they were charging already.‘Most ‘undecided’ respondents indicated they were leaning toward not participating in 20 hours free. They commented on the jeopardy to quality of cutting teacher numbers, the impossibility of making ends meet at the rates announced, the fear free payment rates would not be adjusted for inflation and would erode over time, the fact that voluntary parental payments would not provide enough security of income, and the need for a compulsory top up fee so they could maintain the programmes they were delivering currently.”
According to the ECC, the Government is only offering between $1.02 and $4.60 an hour for services that are currently charged to parents at rates between $2 to $15 an hour. Sue Thorne, Chief Executive of the ECC states:-
‘The bottom line for most centres is as simple as the ABC we teach our children. Most centres, whether community-run or commercially run, will not be able to take up 20 hours free as it stands, because cutting much-loved childcare programmes is against everything they stand for.’Mrs Thorne also said the situation was best in those centres where costs were lowest, and worst in those centres in which costs were highest and 20 hours free was therefore least affordable. ‘Most centres in the rural South Island, for example, are opting in because they can afford to do so without cutting childcare programmes. This is because their land, labour and other costs are low. But in Auckland, for example, land that might cost $50,000 in the rural South Island might cost $500,000 or more. And staff 15% more’
Why is early childhood education so important for my child?
The government on its website reminds us all that “Quality education ensures that every Kiwi regardless of who they are and where they come from can achieve their full potential and contribute to New Zealand's society and economy.”
The results of research recently published by the NZ Council for Educational Research entitled 'Competent Children, Competent Learners' reinforces the importance of effective Early Childhood Education (ECE). As the Minister of Education, Steve Maharey, explains:-"The research shows making early progress in literacy and numeracy is an important factor in determining whether a student remains at school after they turn 16. …It indicates that students who left school before the age of 16 had demonstrated a pattern of poor achievement on the research tests from the age of five.”
There is no doubt that the Government recognises the importance of encouraging as many young children into early childhood education as possible and to that extent we applaud them. As the Ministry of Education website acknowledges:-
“Children don’t benefit from quality ECE if their participation is not intensive enough to create positive education outcomes. New Zealand has high ECE participation rates but children attend for relatively few hours per week, at around 14-17 hours per week for 3 and 4 year olds. That means a lot of children attending 9 hours or fewer per week.”
As we have previously explained, many parents would love to send their child to a pre-school at the age of three, but have been denied this experience due to the high costs of sending a child to a private kindergarten. This situation often arises due to the long waiting time for public kindergarten places (some children do not start until they are nearly four). When the Government made a promise to provide 20 free hours for all three and four year olds, it was effectively offering to solve the problem associated with a shortage of public kindergarten places. Now it seems that families who were expecting financial help to provide an early start to pre-school education for their child may be let down once again. It will no doubt be the children who suffer as we can see from the results of the research above.
Did the Governement always intend the free hours to be really "free"?
It is also becoming clear that the Government has done all of its calculations for working out the rates offered to services as follows :
“Free ECE funding rates have been set to fund 100% of the average cost of meeting the regulated requirement of teacher-led services which ensures a good level of quality early childhood education” (Steve Maharey in a letter to one of our group members dated 3 May 2007)
According to the Early Childhood Council 82% of providers offer services that exceed minimum requirements (a cost that is reflected in fees charged to parents). It is little wonder that services are unable to participate in this scheme if the rates offered by the Government will not pay for anything other than national averages for minimum standards. How did the Government ever expect this to work without acknowledging the fact that you can’t apply a uniform rate when providers do not offer uniform services at a uniform cost?
Has the Government misled us all along, safe in the knowledge that this was an impossible scheme to offer? “Free” was only ever going to mean free up to the cost of the provision of minimum regulated standards. Why then has the Government refused to allow top-ups, if they can see that the vast majority of centres can only offer this by charging contractual top-up fees. The Government must have been aware for some time that many parents were in line to miss out, particularly in high-cost areas where there are few community run and not-for-profit centres and at-home services available.
“Free ECE funding rates have been set to fund 100% of the average cost of meeting the regulated requirement of teacher-led services which ensures a good level of quality early childhood education” (Steve Maharey in a letter to one of our group members dated 3 May 2007)
According to the Early Childhood Council 82% of providers offer services that exceed minimum requirements (a cost that is reflected in fees charged to parents). It is little wonder that services are unable to participate in this scheme if the rates offered by the Government will not pay for anything other than national averages for minimum standards. How did the Government ever expect this to work without acknowledging the fact that you can’t apply a uniform rate when providers do not offer uniform services at a uniform cost?
Has the Government misled us all along, safe in the knowledge that this was an impossible scheme to offer? “Free” was only ever going to mean free up to the cost of the provision of minimum regulated standards. Why then has the Government refused to allow top-ups, if they can see that the vast majority of centres can only offer this by charging contractual top-up fees. The Government must have been aware for some time that many parents were in line to miss out, particularly in high-cost areas where there are few community run and not-for-profit centres and at-home services available.
A National party press release dated 3 May 2007 suggests that the Education Minister was warned by his officials last year that there was a need to contain 'unrealistic expectations' in relation to the '20 hours free' policy. Paula Bennett MP states that
"Ministry officials told him there was a need to contain 'unrealistic expectations that could form around the word free'. "What possible other definition of 'free' is there? Is he concerned that parents might possibly think that 'free' means 'free'? .....If 'free' does not mean what parents, rightly, expect it to mean, why is the Government continuing to promote it as such? Parents and ECE deserve some honesty."
During Question Time on 3 May 2007, Mr Maharey said " this policy is a 10-year strategy that is halfway through. For example, we have 5,000 teachers in training right now to go into early childhood centres. "
The impression given to parents when this policy was first announced in July 2005 was not qualified in any way to say that there would be any roll out period. Mr Maharey in Parliament has said in recent weeks however that this scheme is only being "phased-in" from 1 July 2007 and that it was never the Government's intention to offer it to all 92,000 until 2012!
"Ministry officials told him there was a need to contain 'unrealistic expectations that could form around the word free'. "What possible other definition of 'free' is there? Is he concerned that parents might possibly think that 'free' means 'free'? .....If 'free' does not mean what parents, rightly, expect it to mean, why is the Government continuing to promote it as such? Parents and ECE deserve some honesty."
During Question Time on 3 May 2007, Mr Maharey said " this policy is a 10-year strategy that is halfway through. For example, we have 5,000 teachers in training right now to go into early childhood centres. "
The impression given to parents when this policy was first announced in July 2005 was not qualified in any way to say that there would be any roll out period. Mr Maharey in Parliament has said in recent weeks however that this scheme is only being "phased-in" from 1 July 2007 and that it was never the Government's intention to offer it to all 92,000 until 2012!
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