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Suggested ECE fee cap will prompt 'decline in quality and services' A government idea to control fees charged at early childhood centres if they are higher than it is comfortable with would see quality and services "downgraded". The government plans funding from July 2007 for 'free' 20 hours childcare weekly for three and four year-olds at community-owned centres, paid at the national average hourly cost of providing the 20 hours. Community-owned centres currently charge anything from $10 per week to $250 per week due to markedly different cost structures and services. Minister of Education Trevor Mallard has announced he intends monitoring fees through the CPI with a view to controlling centres' fees if they are higher than he likes. Early Childhood Council chief executive officer Sue Thorne said the funding scheme would mean half the community centres receiving the funding will be under-funded and half over-funded. The penny had finally dropped in the Minister's office that to make ends meet, community-owned centres with above-average costs would have to raise fees for those parts of the week outside the free 20 hours. "It's quite incredible that the Minister's solution to stop any transferring of costs caused by his under-funding is to cap the fees that centres can charge. They will be forced to downgrade the quality of the service they provide to children or go broke." Fee caps would be a significantly backward step for the early childhood sector which had worked hard over the past 15 years to raise standards and provide services that met the needs of the communities they served, Mrs Thorne said. "The proposal is yet another nail in the coffin for diversity and choice and another step towards dumbing-down the early childhood sector to replicate the one-size-fits-all state school model so favoured by the present Minister of Education."
The government statement is at this web page. |
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