Articles

The Future Of Free Kindergartens

The Future of Free Kindergartens By Sue Thorne, Chief Executive, Early Childhood Council There are special moments in the history of organisations. Opposing forces clash, and while it may not be entirely clear at the time, the outcome of the moment changes everything for the future. The current kindergarten industrial dispute may turn out to be such an instant: At stake, the survival of the kindergarten movement in New Zealand. The recent news for kindergartens has not been good. Once dominating the early childhood sector, this year enrolments at kindergartens have fallen to their lowest level since 1991. In contrast over the past fifteen years enrolments in all-day early childhood services have increased by over 150%. Parents in New Zealand have a wide range of choices when it comes to their child’s early childhood education. The government funding for preschoolers follows the child to the service their parent chooses, so those services that offer what parents want, grow and thrive, those that do not, do not survive. Quite simply, the three-hours-a-day 'sessional' care offered by kindergartens no longer meets the needs of many parents. Mum now works as well as Dad. Many more families these days want and need all-day care for their preschoolers. Historical privileges of higher funding rates for children attending kindergartens were removed earlier this year and kindergartens now must compete with the rest of the sector on a level funding playing field. The government’s policy to introduce 20 free hours early childhood education for three and four year olds at all teacher-led services in 2007 will see kindergartens losing their final competitive advantage of being perceived as uniquely ‘free’. The Ministry of Education and the kindergarten associations are not stupid. Based on the trends of the last fifteen years, they know they must change if they are to survive. But they face an impediment the size of a dinosaur: unionised, salaried staff accustomed to kindergartens that are open between three to six hours a day, school terms only. Who on this earth would give up such work conditions willingly? The problem is that kindergartens are competing, or, more accurately, failing to compete, with alternative services in which staff work with the children 35 - 40 hours per week, up to 49 weeks a year. The result is the current industrial dispute with the New Zealand Educational Institute on one side, and the Ministry of Education, New Zealand Free Kindergartens Incorporated and the New Zealand Federation of Free Kindergartens on the other. Unsurprisingly, negotiations have broken down over a plan to get rid of term breaks, a suggestion that contact time with children be increased, and over the pay of senior teachers. Head in the sand over the fact they are part of a highly competitive preschool sector, public statements by the union have repeatedly stated that increased contact time would be unfair because it would be more than that required by primary school teachers. The big problem for the union is that the New Zealand of the 21st century is not the New Zealand of the 20th century in which kindergartens thrived. We are now more diverse and fast moving. Inflexible, mono-cultural, one-size-fits-all New Zealand is gone. The union may be holding out in the hope of wasteful extra government spending that will prop up the kindergarten movement in its current form with special grants and inefficient regulatory protection. It is hard to see what else will save them - in the absence of a workforce prepared to work the same hours as early childhood teachers in the rest of the sector. The non-kindergarten early childhood services are designed to meet the unique characteristics of the families and community they serve. They offer a range of different service features including flexible opening hours and differing philosophies. The non-kindergarten early childhood services are thriving because they offer what parents want: childcare services tailored to the needs of parents and children. To compete, and to halt the decline of their sector, kindergarten associations know they, and the teachers they employ, will have to start living in the real world of the 21st century, or face oblivion.

09/12/05 - Sue Thorne