Sue Thorne: Parents deserve freedom of choice for childcare

Citizens who won't even be voting for another 15 years or so have been the target of tough political campaigning this month as MPs target the votes of parents with preschoolers.

The political one-upmanship has been staunch, but has either side really hit the right note?

In a nutshell, Labour is pumping more, gratefully received, money into the sector but often limiting who can take advantage of it.

National is promising to exceed that funding but scrap the proposed "20 free hours" in community centres for children aged 3 and 4, replacing those hours with childcare rebates for working and solo parents wherever they choose to access that care.

Both parties recognise that good funding is needed and are well aware of the important contribution that will later be made to society and the economy by preschoolers who are well cared for and appropriately educated.

The argument is over where to best direct that money.

These days, increasing numbers of parents are looking to get two things from preschool centres - earlier and better advantages in socialisation and education for their children, and a good balance between parenting and employment.

In other words, they need a system that not only supports their children but allows the flexibility to earn an income to raise those children.

Therefore, a good funding system should work towards both those aims.

This is essential when you consider the importance New Zealanders place on early childhood education (ECE): 98 per cent of all 4-year-olds, for example, have some form of early childhood education outside their own homes - one of the highest levels of ECE in OECD countries.

Limiting "20 free hours" to community centres, as Labour proposes, means that the parents of the 45,000 preschoolers who choose not to use those centres miss out for no other reason than that the centres they like and have chosen for their child have an ownership structure of which the Government disapproves. It also means that New Zealand's 170,000 children under 3 miss out.

The element of "choice" has been part of ECE for more than a decade. Many say that it has proved an important part of the sector's success - in terms of giving parents the means to choose the centre that is best for their family and so making the sector highly responsive to families' needs and delivering quality education at reasonable costs.

When looking at where to send their preschoolers, families weigh up all the important factors: the quality of education and care, location, convenience, cost, opening hours, image and reputation, quality of physical environment and resources, how they feel about being away from their child, freedom to work, and so on.

Labour's policies seem to be telling parents: stop making those decisions yourself and go to the centres we approve of.

Both Labour and National support the childcare subsidy, which is intended for in-need families. Wouldn't it make more sense if valuable taxpayer dollars were directed towards those families rather than benefiting centres on the basis of ownership?

Despite public, and even official, perception to the contrary, there is no state provision of ECE in New Zealand. All ECE providers are private sector. They are all associations, trusts, businesses or private individuals.

Targeting funding for families who need it would let all those providers offer the services they want to and parents would judge which one suited them best.

The Government says under National's policy 86,000 children would miss out on funding. However, three-quarters of those 86,000 children are already in free services (free kindergarten, Playcentre or Te Kohanga Reo) and National has said it has no plans to stop funding those services.

National's policy is to provide rebates to parents who are not receiving free services. This surely means helping more families, not less.

As a Herald editorial argued last week, National's policy, of the two, provides parents with greater choice. The rebate could be used for home-based childcare and for any childcare centres, not just the non-private centres advantaged by the Government's latest moves.

Parents pay from $150 to $300 a week for childcare at a centre-based setting.

With that amount of money outlaid, parents don't make their choices lightly - it is a careful, considered process.

And it goes deeper than just money. Quality and care are of the utmost importance. And being able to decide for yourself what is best for your child is a key - just ask any parent.

* Sue Thorne is chief executive of the Early Childhood Council, an organisation that represents 800 private and community centres providing education and care for more than 40,000 preschoolers.