Situation Critical For Children’s Early Childhood Education And Care

Tamariki are at risk of missing out on vital early childhood education and care with worsening teacher shortages and some services facing closure under Covid-19 requirements.

Te Rito Maioha Early Childhood Education chief executive Kathy Wolfe says that in a December poll of Te Rito Maioha members, 40% of ECE services had recently lost teachers. In February, this had risen to 60% with reasons including Covid-19 requirements, stress, high workloads, and low pay compared to kindergarten and primary teachers.

ECE services were finding it difficult to replace permanent qualified teachers; the majority of those were relying heavily on relievers or unqualified staff. Around quarter of services indicated they were unsure whether they could remain open if one or more teachers need to self-isolate under Covid-19 red setting requirements.

“ECE services are doing their best to plan and stay open for tamariki, but Covid-19 has added incredible pressure to a sector already stressed by prolonged teacher shortages, pay disparity and inequity,” Kathy Wolfe says.

“We’re very concerned for our sector as a whole, for some of our individual members, and especially for tamariki who face further disruption to their learning experiences during the most formative years of their lives.

“We’re in real danger of seeing some centres go under and some of our sector’s most experienced managers and valuable teachers walk away from the stress of it.”

Kathy Wolfe says Government could help in the short-term by recognising early childhood education services and teachers as critical for all young tamariki – not just children whose parents are critical workers.

“We fully stand by our sector partners and colleagues in calling for Rapid Antigen Tests to be available and funded for early childhood teachers through the Government’s Close Contact Exemption Scheme, so that teachers can safely stay at work instead of self-isolating.

“However, beyond the immediate need, the critical step is for the Government to stand by its election promise this Budget and fund ECE services sufficiently to pay all their qualified teachers on a par with their equally-qualified kindergarten and primary school counterparts.

“Without pay parity we will never address ECE teacher shortages, which are worse now but existed long before the pandemic arrived. Without pay parity, we will struggle to attract, train and keep the qualified and high-quality teachers all young tamariki need to provide the best-possible start to their learning.”

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