Save Our Kindergarten, Save Our Centre

Save Our Kindergarten, Save Our Centre

The Karori community is rallying behind a campaign to save Campbell Kindergarten and Karori Kids childcare service while Victoria University is threatening to sell the land from under them.

Victoria University acquired the land from the Ministry of Education for $10 as part of a deal involving the former College of Education on the Karori site and now it wants to sell the land on the open market.

Parents are riled up by the move and are lobbying the Victoria University Council and distributing fliers around the suburb.

Karin Schofield chairs the parent committee at Karori Kids where her three year old son Theo is enrolled. She says the Ministry of Education didn’t consult before handing over the land and it appeared not to understand that this action would put the future of the two centres at risk.

“Parents are very angry about the situation they’ve been placed in,” she says. “They are willing to fight to help keep the centre.”

Karori Kids has been on the site for more than 30 years and recently parents invested $135,000 of money they had fundraised to improve the site.

Campbell Kindergarten, which is part of Whanau Manaaki Kindergartens, has also been operating for more than 30 years. It was never told that the land had been sold to the university.

Whanau Manaaki Kindergartens chief executive Amanda Coulston says the Kindergarten Association is asking the university to postpone selling the land until a solution can be sorted out with the Ministry.

“It makes no sense for two high quality, well supported, community, not-for-profit services to be jeopardised because of a Ministry error” she says. “The Minister of Education needs to step in to sort this out.”

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