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Source: ONE News
Parents with children in early childhood centres could be forking out an extra $10 to $50 a week next year after the government confirmed it was cutting the subsidies.
Education Minister Anne Tolley has confirmed funding rates for 20 hours free ECE will be reduced from $12.45 per child to $11.12 an hour in February next year.
She also said funding won't be exempt from an ongoing review of the sector, which was set up three weeks ago.
However the announcement has the New Zealand Childcare Association concerned.
A survey conducted by the organisation showed parent fees would rise and quality would decrease under next year's funding regime. The survey found over 90% of respondents expected no positive outcomes from the funding changes.
"The survey paints a troubling picture of confidence in the early childhood sector," said NZCA chief executive Nancy Bell.
"Centres are expecting a large shortfall from the reduction of funding, with over 70% of respondents forced to pass some of the shortfall on to parents."
Bell told TV ONE's Breakfast this morning that centres were very concerned about increasing costs to parents.
"But they are left with no option, they are seeing quite substantial cuts to funding next year and are looking at losing anywhere between half a teacher's salary to more than one or two teacher's salary from funding."
She said centres were looking at ways to economise, but that in the first instance they would look at ways that don't affect staffing.
"Inevitably they are either looking at passing on the cost to parents or reducing the amount of teachers."
Taskforce to review the effectiveness
The taskforce, set to report back by March, will review the effectiveness of early childhood education spending. Tolley said that under Labour, ECE costs had "blown out" to treble within five years to $1.3 billion a year.
Bell said she hoped the taskforce would carefully consider the survey "and recommend a sustainable funding model which supports the delivery of high quality early childhood education".
"Government investment in early childhood education is a really good thing for children, but also a good thing for New Zealand," she told Breakfast.
She said there was a lot of evidence that showed public investment in early childhood education makes a big difference in all levels of society.
"It's always good to see government considering its investment in early childhood education," she said. "What we are not happy about is the fact that the taskforce was set up in secrecy, that it is talking about looking at efficiencies, that it does not have any more money to spend and that it is not precluding cuts to funding, those things concern us very much."
"Promises worthless"
Meanwhile, the Labour Party sees the news as evidence the government has broken its election promises.
"The government has already broken its election promise, by cutting the two top subsidy levels for 20 hours ECE after promising they would keep existing subsidies intact for the Labour initiative," Labour Early Childhood Education spokesperson Sue Moroney said yesterday.
"Placing 20 hours ECE under review is yet another betrayal of that election promise."
"National also promised to improve adult:child ratios, but there is already evidence their funding cuts are doing the opposite as ECE providers shed staff to cope with the cuts which take effect from November 1," said Moroney.
However Tolley says subsidies are being retained and the government has actually put extra funding into the industry.
