Hon Bill English National Party Education Spokesman

8 April 2005

Labour dictates childcare drop-off times

National’s Education spokesman, Bill English, says parents with children in early childhood care will be told by Labour to drop their children off “on the hour” so a new staff recording system can work.

“This confirms John Tamihere’s view that the Labour Government is run by people who have no idea of the real work done by families.

“Labour expects parents to re-organise their lives – and presumably their jobs – to fix a ridiculous bureaucratic system that requires childcare centres to record the presence of every child and every teacher in every hour of every day.

“It’s taking teachers up to two hours a day to get the figures right because some parents deliver their children between hours instead of on the hour.

“Ministry of Education officials told teachers at a training session in New Plymouth that they should ‘ask parents to change their working hours so they can drop off and pick up on the hour’. They felt no reasonable parent would be put out by this.

“This is another example of politically correct bureaucracy wasting precious learning time.

“Education Minister Trevor Mallard clearly doesn’t know what is going on. An internal email from him to his staff indicates he thinks the system is simple.

“It’s typical of this Labour Government that they expect parents to change their lives to fit its rules”, Mr English says.

Attachments: Mallard email message, quote from participant at training session

-----Original Message----- From: Trevor Mallard [mailto:Trevor.Mallard@parliament.govt.nz] Sent: Friday, 1 April 2005 11:02 a.m.

charlie can you please get me an update - my understanding is that all that has to happen is that the roster which had to be done anyway is transfered to a form to be held for audit please confirm

Dear Mr Mallard I am writing to enquire about progress on finding a new way to record staffing in Early Childhood centres.

Yesterday I spent just over two hours completing Wedneday's record.

As a qualified and registered manager of a centre, I was also wondering how much more money will be going into the Early Childhood sector to encourage more people to study to become qualified and registered in order to cover the qualified and registered staff that are needed for 2 hours every day to complete the staff record so that we can keep the quality funding level?

Thank you for your time, I look forward to hearing from you.

XXXXXXXX

Date: 5 April 2005 12:14:16 PM To: "Subject: Ministry Reporting Requirements

I wish to report I have had some success with this issue. I brought up the problems at the Ministry training session in NP. The facilitator recommended that we should ask our parents to change their working hours so they can drop off and pick up on the hour. They felt no reasonable parent would be put out by this.

I admit to being surprised at the ingenuity of their reply..... so there you are!!

Nick

ENDS

© Scoop Media