Sue Moroney
Labour spokesperson for Early Childhood Development

Teachers and students let down in Budget

The National Government has taken the knife to four professional development programmes for early childhood education, Labour Early Education Spokesperson Sue Moroney says.

“These development programmes aim to keep New Zealand at the leading edge of the quality of the education we offer to our young children,” Sue Moroney said.

The programmes that have been cut - Centres of Innovation, the implementation of ECE exemplars to develop effective assessment practises, the ECE Advisory Training/Education Fund which was used to strengthen teaching practise and the ECE ICT Framework which worked on the benefits to ECE services of using ICT.

“This saves a measly $9.8m over four years but puts future professional development at risk.

“The National Government are failing to fund initiatives that will have long-term benefits in Early Childhood Education.

“To deliver the best education to our youngest New Zealanders we need to be investing in teachers as well as students.

“The Government has also failed to put any additional funding into increasing participation of children in early childhood education, despite claiming this being their top priority.

“They have scraped $275 million out of the ECE budget that was dedicated to improving staff/child ratios.

“National bragged about moving resources from the backroom to the frontline, but what they are really doing is slashing programmes that focus on long-term development,” Sue Moroney said.

ENDS

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