Budget's early childcare plan 'removes parental choice'

No choice for parents, drops in quality, centre closures, long waiting lists, shortages of centres, a halt to investment in the sector: the government's early childhood education (ECE) funding plans are bad news for parents, say ECE operators.

The government's Budget-announced plans will give funding for 20 hours per week for 'free' to children who attend 'community-based, teacher-led centres' but not the tens of thousands of children at private centres. Early indications are the funding will be paid as an average sum of national childcare costs.

Miriam Anderson is the manager of Manukau Institute of Technology Childcare, a community-based centre that will be eligible for the 'free' funding. She said it was great that her centre's children would be eligible, but Auckland was more expensive than other areas and it was likely the average funding would be less than the centre received now.

"We provide really high-quality food for our children because a lot of our parents are low-income students and solo mums - how will we cope with that if we are funded on a national average?"

Ms Anderson said the plan removed poor parents' choice over where to send their children, and tax breaks would have been better for them.

Lorraine Schou's Bright Beginnings Childcare in Papamoa is also eligible for the funding. She said there was already a shortage of early childcare centres and the policy would worsen that as parents looked to get their children into the free-care centres.

"All types of ECE centres - private, community, kohanga - had been working to the government's 10-year strategic plan and that was great; and we thought the government had been working towards equal standards of quality for all centres and would give funding to centres if they met the standards. Now they just pull the rug out from under us, right out of the blue," she said.

"It has really gutted many people who have been working together to improve the sector."

Jan Beatson, who, along with Wendy Gray, runs the three Play and Learn centres in South Auckland, said the plan discriminated against poor parents who chose private centres.

"They will effectively be forced to leave the centres they have currently chosen to take up the 20 hours free care even if it doesn't offer what they want or need for their children."

Leonie Winfield from Pakuranga's Cascades Childcare Centre said many children's care and education would be disrupted by working parents taking them to community-based centres to get the 20 hours free care and then arranging to get them back for the rest of the week to the private centres they wanted them to be at.

Debbie Johnstone from Temuka's Country Kids Early Learning said all her money went back into her centre to keep quality high, including paying above-average wages to get good staff. The government's plan meant she was unable to prepare for the future.

Nick Collins, the owner of Bubbles Childcare in New Plymouth, called the plans destructive for families and centre operators.

He said parents valued the quality of Bubbles' service and he had planned to open another centre this year to help ease the growing waiting list but would now not do so because of the uncertainty over funding. He said it was likely that most investment in the sector would dry up around the country because of the uncertainty.

Wellingtonian Kate Ormsby, mother of three-year-old Tui, said the plan looked like a Labour Party publicity stunt, designed to look good and achieve very little.

"Low-income families, where parents work long hours or do shift work, find it difficult to meet the demands of a community-based childcare centre where a much higher degree of parental input is required … also there may not be one available in the area, or it might be full."

Quality education at an affordable price came from a healthy competitive environment and parental choice, Ms Ormbsy said.

"It's not for the government to favour one type of provider over another by offering free childcare at certain centres. Imagine the outcry if the government subsidised fees at universities only and excluded all the other tertiary providers?"

If the government really wanted to help low-income families it should limit its role to standards enforcement and allow tax-free income thresholds so that low-income families could "make real education choices with a fuller purse", she said.

The government's early childhood Budget announcement is at http://www.beehive.govt.nz/ViewDocument.cfm?DocumentID=19845