CTU Media Release

2 June 2011
Letting the market decide won’t lift quality in ECE sector

The report released yesterday confirms that the government’s policy on early childhood education is deeply flawed and changes must be made to reverse policies that have increased costs, reduced access and quality in early childhood education. The CTU welcomes the report’s exploration into employment conditions and better support for early child hood education teachers such as better paid parental leave provisions and flexible working hours arrangements but disagrees entirely with the suggestion of letting the market set salary rates.

Eileen Brown, CTU Programme Organiser said “the sector is in an ideal situation to improve support and employment conditions for this workforce which is predominantly women. But the suggestion that early childhood education teacher salary rates should be set by the market is entirely inconsistent with lifting quality in the sector and will not ensure that this workforce is properly and fairly paid and have decent employment conditions deserving of the work they do.”

The report confirms that this government has managed ECE badly but has now got an opportunity to make changes to restore confidence and quality in the early child education sector.

“The report confirms the critical importance of early childhood education, and we support the emphasis placed on quality in early child education. Quality early childhood education is dependent on adequate numbers of professionally trained staff and good working conditions for people delivering services to children in early childhood education centre’s,” said Eileen Brown.

“We totally agree that there must be a better reach of early childhood education services into communities and families that are currently not accessing early childhood education including Maori, Pacific Island and low-income families. But improving access for these families can’t undermine the fundamental principle of providing quality accessible early child hood education to every New Zealand child. Universal access is essential to maintaining quality early childhood education,” said Eileen Brown.

“The report provides a circuit breaker for the government to reverse the changes they brought in that reduce and threaten the quality of early child hood education. The biggest threats are the reduction in trained staff in ECE centre’s and the increased costs that families are now facing.”

ENDS

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