The Herald today starts a week-long look at the burgeoning early-childhood education sector. In this first instalment, Kara Segedin looks at the shape of the industry and examines the work of a typical South Auckland centre.
Government spending on early-childhood education has more than doubled from $428 million to $1.12 billion in the past six years.
The figures from Treasury show that although participation has increased, the growth in spending has largely been to fund improvements and shift the costs of participation from parents to the Government.
Nicola Chisnall, a senior education lecturer at Auckland University of Technology, said the privatisation of early-childhood education had seen a change from innovative, individual programmes to big organisations providing a more standardised approach.
"You can't have a standardised approach for humans. You're dealing with children learning so much at that age you can't put them into boxes."
Community-based centres were still the majority, but private centres were on the increase - up 47 per cent from 2005 to last year. "I don't think it's a good or bad thing, it's a pragmatic solution to a range of difficulties."
She said it was a lot easier for the Government to have a corporate organising care.
Sadly, there was money to be made from caring and educating children. "It depends on how ethical you are. I'm always amazed how people do make money out of early-childhood education."
Care and education services and home-based services are largely private services while kindergartens, playcentres and kohanga reo are all community-based.
Kidicorp is New Zealand's largest private provider with more than 100 childcare centres nationwide. The other private centres are ABC Learning Centres, Macquarie Bank and Kindercare.
Community-based centres are represented by groups like the Early Childhood Leadership Group and the New Zealand Playcentre Federation.
Ms Chisnall said the present and the previous government put a lot of emphasis on supporting education and care services and getting women back into work.
This had resulted in centres moving from the traditional session model where children attend for a couple of hours a day, several times a week, to 78 per cent of centres using a full-day model.
Kim van Duiven, executive director of the Brainwave Trust, said parents needed to be aware that their decisions on childcare affected their child's neurological development. "What neuroscience is telling us supports the olden-day wisdom that children need someone who is madly in love with them in the mothering role."
Children needed warm, responsible and predictable relationships to thrive.
"The first 18 months to two years will be the most beneficial for brain development."
Since 2005, the number of early-childhood education centres has increased 15 per cent to 4123 last year and enrolments have grown 10 per cent to 180,910.
Dr Sarah Farquhar, chief executive officer of the Early Childhood Council, said there were a number of reasons for the growth, one being the introduction of the 20 Free Hours policy in 2007, but the scheme had had a negative impact on playcentres and te kohanga reo, which were not covered by the funding.
However, the largest reduction in enrolments was at kindergartens, which had been in decline since 2005 and were down 12.4 per cent last year.
By contrast, enrolments in education and care, and home-based services increased 20.9 and 54.1 per cent to 101,424 and 15,054. The biggest growth had come from younger age groups: the number of children enrolled aged 2 and under was up 17 per cent, to 67,182.
Dr Farquhar said in the past, grandparents often helped with child care, but today more were working full time, living in other areas or were elderly.
This, combined with an increased number of births and the pressure for both parents to work, meant more young children were entering early childhood services.
Last year, 7972 children under 1 were enrolled, up 21 per cent on 2005. They made up 4 per cent of children enrolled in early-childhood services - but in 2000 they made up 3.7 per cent.
"It sounds like a big number," said Dr Farquhar, "but the proportion is still a very small percentage of under-1s in childcare - I would have expected a bigger increase."
WHAT IT COSTS
The Government's early-childhood education spend:
Year to June 2005: $428 million
June 2007: $600 million
June 2008: $822 million
June 2009: $1.04 billion
June 2010: (forecast) $1.12 billion
- Source: Treasury
