Early childhood teacher shortage could affect 10,000 children

Sarah Farquhar. Photo / Herald on Sunday

Ten thousand children could miss out on early childhood education next year unless the chronic staffing shortage is addressed.

The Ministry of Education told an early childhood supply summit that in the worst-case scenario, the sector could be short of 2600 teachers next year.

In the best-case scenario it could be short of 1500 teachers.

Early Childhood Council chief executive Sarah Farquhar said centres were already struggling to get staff to meet ministry guidelines of one educator to 10 children over 2, and one to five for children under 2.

As a result some centres were facing closure and parents around the country had their children on waiting lists for months - and in some areas up to a year - before they were able to be enrolled, she said.

The early childhood sector is expecting a surge in enrolments as more parents go to work and become aware of the importance of starting a child's education early, and also as the impact of a baby boom filters through.

According to Statistics New Zealand, 403,230 children were eligible for early childhood education (aged 6 and under) in 2006 and this is tipped to grow by 6 per cent to 426,030 by 2011.

Ministry of Education statistics show 190,907 children were on the regular roll of an early childhood education service in July 2007, an increase of 6 per cent since 2003.

Education Minister Anne Tolley has named increased participation as her highest priority for the sector, and said the Budget's allocation of an extra $69 million would achieve this.

But Mrs Farquhar said there were not enough teachers to meet the Government's participation targets. "The gold is there but the teachers are not."

The shortage was exacerbated by the Government's requirement for 80 per cent of an early childhood provider's staff to be qualified by next year, she said.

The Government had no choice but to remove this policy if its early childhood centres were to meet the needs of their communities.

Greater resources should have been pumped into teacher training, and students should have been encouraged towards a career in early childhood teaching five years ago if the Government wanted to realistically meet the target of 80 per cent qualified teachers within the given time-frame, she said.

She predicted that if the targets did go ahead children would be turned away, centres would close and some centres would be punished for not meeting the requirements by being issued provisionary licences and thus facing funding cuts.

She suggested that as well as scrapping the targets, authorities should allow early childhood centres to recognise a greater range of qualifications, such as primary teaching degrees or allowing overseas teachers to fast-track their New Zealand registration, which at present takes three years.

Tanya Harvey, the executive secretary of Early Childhood Leadership, said there was particular concern that Pasifika centres were struggling to meet the current 50 per cent target for registered teachers.

But she did not advocate scrapping the 80 per cent target as the sector needed something to work towards.

The national secretary of the New Zealand Educational Institute, Paul Goulter, said the mood from this week's summit was that the qualification requirement should not be watered down. "Any move to water or dumb down those targets would compromise the quality of education we are striving for for our youngest children," he said.

There was talk about deferring the targets or not tying servicefunding to them to try to let teacher supply catch up with demand,but these were not the preferred options.

He said there was a pressing need for the Government and universities to review the funding caps on a number of teacher education programmes.

Ms Tolley is overseas and could not comment.