Playcentre welcomes funding review

Playcentre welcomes funding review.

New Zealand Playcentre Federation

The NZ Playcentre Federation today welcomed news of a planned review into Playcentre funding, announced as part of the Government's top-up to Early Childhood Education funding yesterday.

"Playcentre is delighted that the Government recognises our quality and is working to ensure we're properly funded", announced Playcentre Federation President Robynn Kopua.

"Parents are our biggest asset, so we need to find ways to attract and sustain them and through this, to nurture our centres.

Parent workload has been repeatedly cited as an issue in keeping families at Playcentre. Increasing our funding would help us to reduce the administrative burden on the parents so they can focus on training and on playing with the children. "Playcentre provides more than the Early Childhood curriculum; it provides families with NZQA approved Early Education training, positive parenting skills, and it also provides families with a network of other parents which strengthens our communities. These are all measures of the quality of a parent-led service, such as Playcentre."

Mrs Kopua commented that the 20 free hours model isn't one that would help Playcentre, as Playcentre children generally would not attend for 20 hours in a week. "It is appropriate, however, that now Playcentres will soon be funded at an appropriate level for us, and that our differences are noted and supported, and the high quality of our early childhood education acknowledged."

Labour has cited "the important role [Playcentres] also play for under-fives" as the reason for the funding review.

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