Government Still Focusing On The Symptoms Not The Cause

“Striking the balance between making Early Childhood Education (ECE) affordable for parents while retaining quality and safety is a difficult task unless the Government is willing to invest meaningfully and adequately into ECE,” says Kathy Wolfe, Te Rito Maioha CE.

“In the last budget government funding for ECE was below the rate of inflation, effectively creating a funding shortfall for ECE services, so to help keep ECE services viable, the Government seems to be looking at ways to reduce costs for ECE services and reduce the pressure to raise fees for parents.”

“The decision to address the requirement of ‘pay’ for reliever teachers falls firmly into the category of trying to reduce costs, but it is also correcting an undesirable outcome where too many teachers were opting to become relievers because the pay and conditions were more desirable.”

“Any increase in the number of ECE services using reliever teachers leads to children having short term interactions with relievers, rather than developing the kinds of long-term relationships that are required to support quality ECE.

“Typically, relievers do not contribute to planning and assessment, reporting, internal evaluation, mentoring or the other professional requirements of registered teachers. Consequently, permanent staff have increased workloads and responsibilities while receiving the same, or less pay rates as relievers.”

“Because there is such a teacher shortage, relieving in ECE became more desirable compared to being a full-time teacher. This is not good for ECE services, or the children who need the quality relationships and education developed with full time teachers.”

“Unfortunately the removal of pay parity for relievers is treating the symptom not the cause,” says Mrs Wolfe. “To increase ECE teacher numbers and retention, the government needs to invest in the sector properly and put in place an integrated investment model that attracts, educates, recruits and retains a teaching workforce that demonstrates the value of teaching and the teaching profession.”

“Any undermining of pay parity will ultimately reduce the number of teachers that stay in the profession and reduce the number of students that choose to become qualified teachers. So while the decision makes sense in the short term to rebalance the quality and cost of relievers, pay parity conditions are critical to valuing teachers.”

“ECE services are not excluded from paying their relievers at pay parity, so while we view this as an interim quick fix, we need to put in place meaningful solutions that supports all our ECE teachers and ECE services through the imminent Funding Review.”

“The motivation to support quality education, and therefore develop a highly qualified workforce should remain the driving motivation of the government and the sector, and a balance between the current cost cutting drive and retaining quality ECE must be achieved. We look forward to working with the sector and government to achieve great outcomes for children and ECE,” says Mrs Wolfe.

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