Speeches

Teachers Matter In Early Childhood Education

Teacher’s Matter in Early Childhood Education Susan M Thorne Chief Executive Officer Early Childhood Council Speech to the Early Childhood Council Conference 2008 Wellington, New Zealand Sunday 4 May 2008 Ladies and Gentlemen It’s a real pleasure to address New Zealand’s largest early childhood education conference this afternoon. I’m tremendously proud to work for the early childhood sector and I know that the people in this room today represent every facet of the industry. The early years are sometimes described as a child’s learning prime. Because children are eager to learn and able to absorb huge amounts of information quickly, early childhood education plays a critical role in preparing young New Zealanders for school and for life beyond school. I want to acknowledge the work put in by everyone involved in the sector. I know it can be interesting, challenging, fun and frustrating but, above all, it is important. It makes a difference. Not everyone can come home from work and say that. In my comments today, I’m going to examine the single biggest challenge facing the early childhood sector – workforce issues, specifically teacher shortages. This issue, more than any other, will determine the future of early childhood education in this election year and beyond. It is pleasing to see that education is already shaping up to be a major election issue. Both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition chose to focus on education in their scene-setting speeches to start the year. I think it is entirely appropriate - getting education right is critical to New Zealand’s future. Fundamentally, that is recognised across the political spectrum though there is naturally plenty of debate about what precise policies will be most effective. An emerging theme in both political speeches was the need to ensure children get off to the right start and stay on track. Once a child is off the tracks, it is much harder to get them back on. The implicit challenge from the speeches was “what can the education sector and employers do to help?” For the early childhood sector, all the research makes our answer quite clear. If we can provide a quality education experience at a young age, children are known to be more school ready and more likely to succeed in education and employment. They are also significantly less likely to indulge in anti-social behaviour which makes it easier for teachers to teach and for learners to learn. It’s a win-win situation Of course, it is never quite that easy. As an industry body, the Early Childhood Council needs to know what our members think about key issues. Last year, we conducted a substantial survey to determine what the big challenges were for the sector. Most of the time, a question like that would throw up a wide range of answers. Centres would have different concerns based on their location, their ownership and the families they provide services to. Not this time. By a massive margin, the single biggest challenge for the early childhood sector was workforce issues, particularly teacher shortages. It was the most important issue for rural and urban centres. It was the most important issue in the North Island and the South Island. It was the most important issue for commercially run centres and community-run centres. There was literally no way to slice the data to show any other result. The message we took from the survey was that New Zealand has to address the workforce issues in our sector as a matter of urgency. If we don’t, educational quality and participation will suffer. There are two aspects to the early childhood teacher shortage – coping with the growing participation rates and maintaining the quality of the services provided. Turning first to increasing participation - it’s a numbers game and the numbers are unambiguous. Since 1990, the number of enrolments in education and care centres is up 168% and the number of services is up 195%. Even over the last four years, enrolments are up 16% and service numbers are up over 15%. At the very simplest level, more children means there is a need for more teachers. However, the situation is actually more complicated than that. Breaking down the figures further, it is clear that the number of children aged two and under in early childhood is growing massively – between 10% and 17% over the last four years. Conversely, the number of four year olds over the same period is up just 0.2% while the number of five year olds is actually down. Basically, it is clear that we have more children in our centres, they are starting younger and they are staying longer. This situation should not be a surprise – it has not happened by accident. It has long been a Government and sector priority to lift participation in early childhood education. A lot of effort has gone into making the participation message a reality. From an educational standpoint however, younger children need more one-on-one attention. This in turn places greater demands on staff time. The end result is that staff numbers in a centre need to increase in order to meet both the growing numbers of children and the more intensive demands of caring for infants and toddlers. There is also a further consideration. One of the key themes of the conference keynotes has been how to reach out to at-risk children. These are the children who stand to gain the most from early childhood education but are also traditionally the most likely to miss out. We heard the presentation on Friday from Heather Donoyou and Judy Potts about how Pen Green managed to reach out to engage children and families who had found it difficult to access early childhood services. Increasingly, many centres here are looking to reach out to at-risk children. With overall participation at high levels, these are the ones we really need to get to. However, we also know that engaging in a meaningful way with at-risk children does take up more teaching time. Tragically, whenever there are staff shortages, the first to miss out are usually the at-risk children. We need to ensure there are consistently enough teaching staff to make a difference in this critical area. At the moment, the Early Childhood Council survey makes it clear that we do not have those numbers. In fact, we are not even close. We are certainly not unique in that regard. Other parts of the teaching sector are in a similar position. Overall, a range of data indicates that virtually all professions and trades are struggling with workforce issue and skill shortages. When it comes to teacher numbers, the Government has made two critical decisions which are having a major impact. First, the Government has set a series of ambitious goals regulating the percentage of qualified teachers in a centre. At this point, I’m going to disappoint those in the room who still want to debate the wisdom of the policy. I acknowledge that some still have reservations about whether such regulations are required and others fear that very experienced teachers are leaving the sector rather than going through the effort to formalise their skills. However, I believe the argument about the move towards 100% registered teachers is basically over. It is now a reality – the issue now is that we have to decide how best to deal with it. The Government points to the fact that since 2002 the percentage of qualified staff in the sector has gone from 39% to 52%. That is a significant increase of 13% over five years. Under the current timeframes, this means we have just four years to formally qualify the remaining 48% of teachers. To me, that illustrates the scale of the challenge we are facing. The ambitious goals mean it is more important than ever that there are sufficient teaching graduates coming out of the training institutions. I can’t pretend that is the case now. The second Government decision is going to make this situation much worse rather than better. At a time of increasing participation, increasing parental demands and increasing requirements for qualifications, the Government has effectively capped teaching graduate numbers and, in some cases, will be looking to make providers reduce the numbers they teach. Training establishments are operating in a very difficult environment. The Government has now decided to cap the number of enrolments in all tertiary institutions. Previously, this policy applied only to private providers but they were allowed – indeed encouraged – to enrol unfunded students. This will now be banned. Institutions are now expected to provide no more than 103% of their funded places or face sanctions. A number of private teacher training establishments had been running well in excess of 103% delivery for many years. In effect, they were educating teachers at no direct cost to the Government except for loans and allowances. The message from the Tertiary Education Commission is that this has to stop. It is perverse. Many of the trainers are specialists in early childhood education training meaning there is no ability for them to change their mix of provision to increase teaching graduate numbers. They will be capped at 103% when I can assure you the demand is considerably more than 103%. If we could not produce enough graduates when trainers were able to over deliver, why do we think we can do it when numbers are going to be capped or even reduced? This policy is a forlorn attempt to constrain growth in a growing sector. Worse, much of the demand is actually Government driven. One part of the Government says that all teachers must be qualified; another part of the Government says that qualified training numbers need to be capped. The policies are irreconcilable. I echo what I said last year at this conference – policy does matter. Good policy is one of the keys to obtaining good outcomes for the children attending your services. Conversely, bad policy can have the opposite effect. This is – bluntly – bad policy. If you think it is hard to get staff now, this policy will make it much harder. It is impossible to see how capped teacher enrolments will ever produce the required number of graduates and that is not good for children and families or for services. Of course, no discussion of teacher numbers would be complete without mentioning the perennial topics of recruitment and retention. When it comes to recruitment, the sector is concerned that we unnecessarily shut out some very good teachers from overseas. Well, it is not so much that we shut them out but we make it so difficult for them to enter the profession here that it is a significant disincentive to move. There is a great deal of frustration about the NZQA process for approving and validating foreign qualifications. They state there is no list of approved qualifications or institutions and that every application is considered individually. However, we know there is a basic list outlining qualifications which are generally acceptable if they are genuine. Even knowing this basic information would make recruiting easier. Centres would be able to say to a potential recruit “if you really do have that degree from that training establishment you will almost certainly be fine here.” Currently, everything is done in the dark. It is hard to sell coming all the way to New Zealand when there are no guarantees about the recognition of qualifications. Domestically, there is also concern that we are making it too difficult for qualified primary teachers to switch to early childhood education. It appears there is a bigger gap than there should be. Primary teachers have to take an 18 month course to switch to early childhood. In some cases they will be studying for a year and a half to teach children only a year or two younger than their previous students. I appreciate there is the need to ensure quality and safety. I also appreciate that there are some key pedagogical and social differences between early childhood and primary education. However, the system could be revised to take better account of a primary teacher’s experience and make the switch between sectors easier and more seamless. In terms of retention, our sector is characterised by high staff churn – people entering and leaving employment relatively often. Given the demographic make-up of our workforce, churn will always be an issue but there are ways to mitigate some of the worst aspects. The key challenge for many centres, even when they are fully staffed, is that because of the churn, inexperienced staff are thrown in the deep end as soon as they graduate. Because of staffing pressures, new graduates frequently move directly into supervisory positions without the necessary experience to manage the position. It’s unfair on the staff and it is unfair on the children. There needs to be better mentoring, guidance and support for beginning teachers. They need to have a little time to find their feet in the profession. If this doesn’t happen, we will continue to see an exodus of teachers leaving after just a short time in the profession. Providing proper support and reducing the pressure on new staff will go a long way towards keeping those people in the sector. Moving beyond the issue of teacher numbers and supply, the second topic I wish to address is the quality and relevance of teacher training. Quality and relevance is not the same as qualification. I acknowledge today that training institutions are running in a difficult environment. They have capped enrolments and capped fees at the same time as huge demands from students and employers. There are huge demands from the Government too. Training institutions are constantly going through an endless series of hoops for TEC, NZQA and the Teachers Council. Trainers face a daily battle of compliance, red tape and planning. A complicating factor is that both NZQA and TEC are moving through significant transition periods. Training establishments are working on regional plans and institution plans as well as meeting constant demands for information. The Single Data Return is a misnomer. It is hard and it goes a long way to explaining why they sometimes struggle to meet expectations from the sector. There is a tendency to feel they don’t have time to find out what employer’s actually want and need from their employees. It’s vital that they make the time to connect. Otherwise, there is a mismatch between the expectations of employers and the skills the graduate actually learns. One of the initial roles of TEC was supposed to be to bring education and employers together. It was supposed to close the circle but it is not happening. One of the key factors contributing to the current workforce situation is the restrictions the Teachers Council has placed on training providers regarding the recognition of a student’s prior learning. Because these restrictions limit the amount of credit which can be recognised for prior learning, a number of very experienced staff with older qualifications are required to ‘start again’ if they wish to upgrade their qualifications. That is because qualifications older than six years are not recognised at all and the maximum credit allowable for qualifications less than six years old is just two-thirds of the diploma or degree. Effectively this means that all these experienced staff, regardless of their previous study, competence and experience, must complete at least one year of a teaching diploma or degree in early childhood education. Many of them will have to do all three years. It’s no wonder we often lose those people from the profession. The restrictions, to me, appear excessive. Furthermore, the move by most ECE teacher training providers from a diploma to a degree qualification has resulted in a shift in the focus of the course content from a practical qualification to a more research-laden qualification. The academic side of teaching is important but there perhaps needs to be a better balance. The focus on ticking all the required academic boxes means the vocational and emotional skills drop away. As a result, there are some graduates entering the profession who are ill prepared for the reality of the workplace. Caring and nurturing may not be included in the Teachers Council 29 Satisfactory Teacher Dimensions but these attributes are required on the centre floor every day. If teachers in the early childhood sector do not have these skills they either leave the sector quickly (putting more strain on the centre) or they stay working (which can compromise quality). In a setting where young children form bonds with their teachers quickly, teaching really does matter. We need to have a serious look at the balance of our teaching qualifications. It is election year and the focus, hopefully, will be on solutions rather than problems. I may be still a little naïve even after all these years. That process started on Friday when the representatives of the parties currently in Parliament set out their thinking on early childhood education. During the presentations, it was clear that the political parties have not yet fully grasped the enormity of the workforce challenge. They need to understand both the scale of the issue and the urgency required to address it. This was reinforced by the questions which focussed strongly on teacher shortages and qualifications. On a personal note, there are four ideas I would like to suggest which need further consideration. I’m not saying they are necessarily right, simply that we need to think about making some changes if the early childhood sector is going to progress. First, I believe there is a need to restore a bit of balance to teacher training that would help ensure that new staff entering the profession are fully equipped to deal with the emotional and vocational aspects of the job. This will involve the training establishments making the time to listen to employers more. I would like to suggest that perhaps employer representatives could take the initiative in this regard by regularly inviting all ECE training providers around the table to discuss employer needs. This is an initiative which could usefully be facilitated by TEC to show they are genuine in their desire to bring employers and providers together. Second, the training establishments should be freed from many of the arbitrary bureaucratic restraints and compliance - particularly the new enrolment cap limits. The regulatory framework should recognise the imperative to increase teacher supply. Third, we need to make the profession more attractive for people - both men and women - in order to recruit and retain staff. The formation and success of the Men’s Network is a great example of how this can happen. Appropriate support and guidance for beginning teachers would also be a positive step. Additionally, a proactive approach by the sector to promote early childhood teaching as a career choice through schools would be useful. Finally, and this will need some work, we need to reflect on whether having one early childhood education qualification is still appropriate. Is there an opportunity for specialisation in the profession? Having a specialised, more focussed programme may make early childhood teaching more attractive to some potential teachers. I think that it is an issue we should consider seriously. Specialisation like this would have to be properly monitored and managed but is certainly worth considering. It would undoubtedly be a step towards addressing workplace issues. As I said at the start of this speech, this is the single biggest challenge facing the early childhood sector at this time. It will require an urgent and co-ordinated response from centres, representative bodies, politicians, officials and training establishments. To ensure the next generation gets the early childhood education sector it deserves, we will all have to step up to the workforce challenge.

03/05/08 - Sue Thorne