Special Education support

A parent run group advocating for children with disabilities is calling for an immediate end to the funding freeze on Early Childhood Centres, after a recent NZEI survey showed nearly a third of ECE’s are unable to provide inclusive education.

Glenis Bearsley, co-founder of VIPs inc (Very Important Parents are included NZ) Facebook group is one of over 1000 parents, educators and allies who advocate for equitable education opportunities for students with disabilities.

She believes students with additional needs at early childhood level are missing out. Her own son, who had complex medical issues as a pre-schooler, was only able to attend his local kindergarten for one day a week due to him needing one-on-one support from an Education Support Worker and the limited funding he received.

“The funding wasn’t available to support Jono with an ESW so he was only able to attend one day a week at kindy while his little sister was able to go for 20 hours free ECE. It was terribly upsetting for him to arrive in the kindy carpark and see his sister run off with her friends while he had to leave.”

Mrs Bearsley hears stories like this all the time and is worried the situation will only worsen for students if the Government doesn’t improve funding levels.

“It really upsets me to hear of children who are missing out on accessing education in those really formative years. Every child deserves to go to kindy, play, learn and make friends. Limited access due to poor funding for students with additional needs is discrimination.”

The survey, released by NZEI Te Riu Roa, shows shortfalls in funding for Early Childhood Education, which is of particular concern for students with disabilities and additional learning needs. Of 264 Early Childhood Centres surveyed, 31% said that the inclusion of learners with special education needs has been affected by the 6 year long ECE funding freeze.

Recent exposure of seclusion rooms in the media has been connected with lack of funding and resources for school aged students with additional needs. This new survey from NZEI Te Riu Roa clearly shows the funding issues are endemic in early childhood also.

A Ministry of Education proposal Strengthening Inclusion and Modernising Learning Support released August 9 this year identifies increased demand for special education support in ECE because of “earlier identification of needs through early intervention services and increased participation in early childhood education. There are also more children and young people with acute and complex needs, e.g. neuro-developmental issues such as Autism Spectrum Disorder and Foetal Alcohol Syndrome Disorder.”

Despite increased demand for special education services across all levels of education the Ministry of Education has stated there will be no overall funding increase. As the demand for services increases the situation is likely to worsen.

VIPs co-founder Sue Kenny saw the issues first-hand running an Early Childhood Centre. “Many centres do their best to cater for students with diverse needs but with child-to-teacher ratios increasing and centres having to employ unqualified staff to cut costs, the challenge grows daily. It becomes an issue of safety, especially if the child requires a high level of care, and often they are simply unable to attend safely without an ESW present. Teacher to child ratios are already stretched which also lowers the quality of interactions with all children attending.”

The recent Ministry of Education proposal aims to make changes that provide special education students with “the most suitable support, best matched to their needs, as early as possible in their

lives,” but lowered teacher standards and increased teacher to child ratios in the ECE setting poses increasing difficulty for identifying students who have less obvious learning needs. It is also questionable how students with complex needs will access support in the ECE setting without adequate staffing to attend their local early childhood centre regularly for 20 hours as all other children do.

VIPs inc would like to see…

- a finish to the funding freeze in ECE so every child can have the best early childhood education possible

- more funding support for special education needs in ECE that is not filtered from school aged students.

- increased funding for Education Support Workers so that children with very high needs, who require close supervision and support, can attend ECE for 20 hours Free on par with their counterparts

- a commitment to under graduate and PD training for ECE teachers in Special Education needs and identification of disorders

- a reduction in waiting time for Ministry of Education specialists and therapists in ECE.

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