Kindergarten parents and early childhood experts are calling for the Government to act to protect free kindergartens in advance of a public meeting being held in Havelock North tonight.
The Heretaunga Kindergarten Association (HKA) recently reviewed the way it offers kindergarten services to local families, following the Auckland Kindergarten Association's announcement that it was considering extending six-hour day attendance at many of its kindergartens to seven hours, and doing away with school holiday breaks.
ChildForum chief executive Dr Sarah Alexander will be speaking at the meeting tonight and said these moves ran the risk of erasing the free kindergarten model that had benefited many Kiwi families over the past decades.
Kindergartens were now at risk of losing their special status within the education system, including the possibility that the Government would seek to remove them from the State Sector Act, thereby removing protections for teachers, she said.
"Almost no kindergartens now meet the definition of being a free kindergarten as society generally understands it, as they are licensed for children to attend more than four hours a day, charge fees, and are managed as part of larger business entities with little or no community control.