Urgent call for extra early childhood funds

GEORGINA STYLIANOU

The Government needs to act urgently to avoid plunging Christchurch's early-childhood education sector into crisis, a union says.

The New Zealand Education Institute (NZEI) yesterday responded to a report completed by Core Education and commissioned by the Education Ministry.

The report looked at early-childhood education in Christchurch's earthquake-hit eastern suburbs and recommended free access or reduced fees at affected centres.

Sixteen recommendations were made in the report, including reviewing the funding provision and retaining funding levels to centres for up to six weeks after a child left for quake-related reasons.

The report also found participation levels in Christchurch had declined.

Seventy-five eastern centres that were still open had an overall 17.5 per cent decline in enrolments, from 3914 in 2010 to 3461 last year.

NZEI national executive member Hayley Whitaker said the union supported the recommendations in the report.

The Government had "ignored repeated calls from NZEI and early-childhood centres to guarantee pre-quake funding levels", she said.

"It's critical for Christchurch's children and families that centres have enough funding and support going into the future."

Whitaker said the situation in Christchurch was "urgent".

"Everything must be done to make [participating in early-childhood education] as easy as possible for the families and communities of east Christchurch," she said.

The Avonside Early Childhood Centre lost half the children from its roll after the February quake.

Assistant head teacher Sue Downey said all the centre's teachers were living in the red or orange zones and the aftermath of the quakes had "nearly destroyed us".

"We have really, really struggled and we need all the help we can get to enable us to fizz over for the next year or so," she said.

Downey said she hoped the ministry would "step up and help".

"We need extra funding and we need to have a chance to recover properly," she said.

Christchurch East Labour MP Lianne Dalziel said enrolment levels at centres had been "adversely affected".

"We warned the Government that its [funding] cuts, coupled with the impact of the earthquakes, would cause these problems," she said. "Hopefully it will see the need to respond now that this report has been released."

Dalziel said early-childhood education was "massively under-resourced in our most vulnerable city".

"The left hand hasn't a clue what the right hand is doing and the Government is merely paying lip service to the needs of vulnerable children," she said.Education Ministry acting southern regional manager Kathryn Palmer said the ministry would conduct an online survey of services across Christchurch to gain information.

At this point, no additional funding would be provided, she said.

- © Fairfax NZ News