’20 Hours Free’ Early Childhood Education

’20 Hours Free’ Early Childhood Education

Dear Parents, Caregivers and Whanau

From 1 st July 2007 all eligible early childhood services can voluntarily choose to enter into the Government’s policy to provide up to 20 hours free early childhood education (ECE) to three and four year olds in teacher-led services (such as kindergarten, childcare, home based and some Kohanga Reo centres).

In theory, the AKA supports the Government’s policy; however the way the policy is to be administered and the rates of funding leave serious concerns that we feel still need to be worked through by the Minister of Education, Steve Maharey.

Bulk Funding At present the Government provides bulk funding to all chartered ECE services. Different types of services receive different rates of funding, but currently kindergartens in NZ with 100% teacher-led services receive barely enough to cover operating costs or allow for repairs, maintenance or growth. We have been told this bulk funding will continue whether or not the service decides to offer the 20 Hour Free policy.

20 Hours Free Funding ’20 Hours Free’ Funding will be given on top of the bulk funding rate and will apply only if the service agrees to enter into the scheme. The Government recently released the rates of funding that will be given to the services that choose to provide the 20 Hour Free policy. The rates have been set to allow a minimum level of service in terms of the Ministry of Education’s requirements. The rates were calculated on outdated financial material and which does not take into account aspects such as the value to kindergartens of donations, fundraising and volunteer contributions. For kindergartens the effect of the 20 Hour Free funding rate is 91c per child per hour (exc GST). For the AKA the average donation requested is about $1 per child per hour (excl GST) so a shortfall immediately exists.

Unresolved Issues 1. If we decide to opt in to the scheme we cannot charge a ‘fee’ in the first 20 hours of a child’s enrolment to make up for any shortfall. We can ask parents to pay a donation, however, this may not always be practical to negotiate, particularly where additional teachers or staff are employed and certainty of income is needed. 2. Some early childhood services may increase the fees required for Under 3 year olds/Over 5 year olds, or, a weighting on the fee for the extra hours enrolled by the three to four year old child. We do not support the idea of cross subsidisation to make the 20 Hour Free policy work. In addition, for the AKA there are no three and four year old children that attend more than 20 hours per week and very few Under 3/Over 5 year olds to pass costs onto.

3. Parents can choose where they use their 20 free hours. If a kindergarten child also attends another service where fees are charged, parents will, no doubt, choose to use their 20 free hours there, rather than at the donation-based kindergarten. If the AKA parents then also choose not to pay their donation the kindergarten will suffer financially and standards will slip.

All of these points, and additional concerns, have been made known to the Minister for Education, Steve Maharey by the ECE sector including our General Manager, Tanya Harvey.

The Next Step

The Minister has signalled that he would like a couple of months in which to engage with the ECE providers and hear the views of parents, before deciding whether the policy needs to be altered and/or to recommend to the Government that the free rates be increased.

The AKA is responsible for 107 kindergartens in the wider Auckland area, with up to 9,000 children attending on a daily basis (10% of all the three to four year olds in NZ attending ECE). As a Charitable Trust we must carefully consider our next move to protect the best interests of our members; from both the day to day operations and financial points of view, and the future viability of our Association.

Conclusion

In relation to whether the AKA will opt into the 20 free scheme, the AKA Council have resolved to:

• continue to lobby the Government for changes to the policy and to address the inadequate funding rate; and

• reserve making a final decision on whether or not to opt into the scheme, until the Minister has had time to review the policy and advise of any changes.

We urge you to write to the Minister with your views (and send a copy to us) on the 20 free policy and in particular to push for;

• an increase in the funding rate for our kindergartens

• a review of the ‘optional charges’ to allow services to charge a fee for the funding shortfall and to provide quality standards above the minimum.

We realise that this is a key policy for nearly 100,000 families throughout NZ and eagerly await further details from the Minister so that we can review our decision and inform you once again.

Ends