Category: News

Categories
News

New Zealand campaign to improve early education launched

Cuts to funding are eroding the quality of ECE services and the union wants the Government to commit more money to ECE in the next budget, NZEI national president Judith Nowotarski says.

“It is a great cause for concern that earlier gains such as a goal of having 100 percent qualified teachers in ECE centres have been dropped and centre sizes have been allowed to balloon out to 150 children,” she said.

“Quality ECE is crucial for all children but is particularly important for those children who come from low socio-economic backgrounds.”

3 News (3/3/2013)

A great shame to see early education services for New Zealand children and families being reduced. New Zealand has a progressive and respected approach to early learning with children – particularly Te Whāriki, NZ’s early learning and development framework.

The conservative government of the United Kingdom has also flagged rolling back reforms to their ECEC sector. What would these moves signify if we end up with a Liberal Tony Abbott-led government in September?

Categories
News

Is a lack of high-quality ECEC holding back women’s rights?

The U.S. lags far behind other industrialized nations in establishing a functional child care system. That’s why President Obama’s recent proposal to provide universal access to preschool is encouraging. While it doesn’t completely address the needs of the 11 million children younger than 5 utilizing child care each week, it’s a step in the right direction for women and families.

Not only does preschool improve the educational trajectory of young children, but universal access to preschool would eliminate one barrier to women’s equality in the workforce — at least, beyond a child’s first three years of life. The work-life policies that [New York Times columnist] Coontz seeks must be accompanied by increased public investment in child care and early education, particularly for the most marginalized women.

Anika Rahman, Huffington Post (2/3/2013)

The childcare sector was set up primarily to provide opportunities for women to enter the workforce, due to entrenched cultural biases towards women taking on the child-rearing role. While it is certainly true that a well-funded and high quality ECEC sector could improve women’s rights in the workplace, it can be problematic to purely view ECEC as a workforce issue. This means that the focus is on workers, and not children.

If we wanted to view ECEC as purely about workforce participation, we could simply cut qualification requirements and regulations and have it as an extremely cheap babysitting service. This would enable more families to afford it and enable great workforce participation.

But would that be in the best interests of children? Surely a superior proposition is to have high-quality early learning for children at no cost to any family – thereby ensuring equity for children from disadvantaged backgrounds. This is the philosophy behind universal-access advocacy, and would be working in the best interests of children, while also giving families (particularly women) choices around their careers.

Categories
News

United States early childhood educators facing similar pay struggles to Australia

Heather Amos, who works at A New Dimension Child Enrichment Center, said she is actually making less money in the child care field now than she was seven years ago. “It’s not just a physically demanding job but emotionally as well,” she said. “Obviously no one goes into this field to get rich, but I feel given the amount we are investing in the lives of these children, we should earn more.” Still, she has mixed feelings about unions. “A lot of it comes down to who is running the unions, but I feel childcare workers are underpaid for the amount of work we do.”

Sheila Regan, Twin Cities Daily Planet (1/3/2013)

The United States has a much more complicated system of early childhood education and care which varies wildly from state to state. Government funding levels are also a huge issue, with President Obama prioritising an overhaul of preschool funding in his most recent State of the Union address.

Categories
News

Megan Mitchell appointed as Australia’s first National Commissioner for Children’s Rights

On Monday, Prime Minister Julia Gillard said that Ms Mitchell would ”ensure that the voices of young people are heard by government”.

Addressing the PM and children at a Canberra primary school, Ms Mitchell said the role was ”something the community has been calling for for some time”.

Ms Mitchell said that until now there had been no one person that could ”focus solely on the needs of children and their rights and their interests and the laws and policies and services that effect them”.

Judith Ireland, SMH (25/2/13)

The appointment of Australia’s first National Children’s Commissioner is a great step towards having a truly national and holistic focus on children’s rights.

Categories
News

Goodstart Early Learning: Government must pay for the reforms they have introduced

Ms Davison’s [Goodstart Early Learning CEO] intervention is significant because Goodstart is a strong supporter of the quality reforms, but she is speaking out to highlight their impact on its operating costs.

She said the debate over the reforms must now be over and the government needs to instead concede that fees will go up and be passed on to parents unless it pays for them as a matter of urgency.

“A full review of the funding model and an increase in levels of funding available to providers and families is the only way to fully realise the benefits that can be achieved through a holistic approach to a child’s education beginning from birth,” she said.

Patricia Karvelas, The Australian (27/2/13)

Fantastic to see Goodstart Early Learning continuing their positive advocacy for children and families with Government. Other not-for-profit providers around Australia should follow their example.

Categories
News

Private operators threat to EC Minister

Mr Mahony said the government’s reforms to the childcare sector had increased unnecessary bureaucracy and red tape, and increased costs. “Some of the changes are going to drive up costs to levels that will make affordability an absolutely huge problem for many families, and certainly for disadvantaged families,” he said.

Michael Owen, The Australian (25/2/2013)

It is important to remember here that the private-operator community, particularly those represented by people like Mr Mahoney, have little-to-no interest in quality learning and wellbeing outcomes for children. They are purely concerned with profit and scaling back regulations and quality to meet that end.

Categories
News

The importance of early education

There’s still resistance [to the NQF changes] from some in the sector, mainly private operators who complain about costs and the timetable for change. They say the changes are ”too much, too soon” and that the cost of complying with the new standards has pushed up childcare fees.

Yet failing to provide qualified teachers would be unthinkable at any other level of schooling. When young children start school, parents know their child will be taught by university-trained teachers who are required to continually update their skills through ongoing professional development.

Until the national framework’s introduction at the beginning of last year, there was no such requirement for our youngest children. Yet, as years of brain research have shown, children’s ability to perform in the first years of primary school depends on the experiences and learning acquired from birth.

Maxine McKew, The Age (24/2/13)

Categories
News

Wage disparity between ECTs in ECEC and Government Preschools

Only hairdressers, animal trainers and supermarket checkout operators earn less than childcare workers, according to the latest Bureau of Statistics figures. Full-time childcare workers earn $811.40 a week, compared with the average full-time weekly earnings of $1122.60, forcing many to take on second jobs to make ends meet.

Cosima Marriner SMH (24/2/13)

Categories
News

Less tinkering needed, more consideration to a “root-and-branch” overhaul of ECEC

The current funding model – a John Howard special – removed the direct funding of services entirely from the system, replacing it with standardised fee subsidies for parents.

The rhetoric is straight economics 101: parents are the best judges of the quality of care so they will choose the right services. They are assumed to be able to compare prices, hours, quality, like choosing a Laundromat, and be ready to move the child if there is a better local offer. The model assumed a level playing field between consumer and provider but a perennial shortage of care in most areas put the power into the providers hands.

“Child’s play: Coalition childcare inquiry doesn’t go far enough”, Eva Cox (The Conversation)

Categories
News

Big Steps still doing the media rounds

Early childhood expert Elspeth McInnes, a senior lecturer at the University of South Australia, said it was crucial to have better-paid, more qualified staff.

“Best practice in childcare involves a policy of continuity of care, an environment where the child consistently has a familiar carer available to them,” Dr McInnes said.

“Childcare pay row tests the care factor”, Elissa Doherty (Herald Sun, paywalled)