The education a person receives in childhood is crucial to their overall educational success. Photo / 123rf, File
The education a person receives in childhood is crucial to their overall educational success. Photo / 123rf, File
Opinion by Jacqui Southey
OPINION
Early childhood education is more than sandpits and finger painting.
Today, on International Day of Education, we need to acknowledge greater understanding is required to see the value of education for our littlest children.
Education has long been a key priority of the New Zealand Government.
We have acomprehensive public education system, primarily funded by government, and, over the past two decades, Aotearoa has significantly grown its adult education achievements, doubling the numbers of those with bachelor’s degrees.
Yet while successive governments continue to see and understand the value in investing in education, early childhood education is not always thought of or included in that overall investment picture. There is no doubt that adult education should be a priority.
But for these investments to really pay off, we need to understand and appreciate the full spectrum of education beginning with early childhood education.
Well-educated adults do not begin in adulthood. The education a person receives in childhood is crucial to their overall educational success – and the roots of that success can be found in their early childhood experiences of kindergarten, playcentre or an equivalent.
In this way, the importance of early childhood education cannot be underestimated.
Yet while adults often view little children at play through rose-tinted glasses, the early childhood education sector itself is far from rosy. Costs have continued to rise, particularly with much of the sector under private ownership focused on profit.
These increased costs have made it harder for parents on mid to lower incomes to afford to send their children to early childhood education, reducing the number of children able to access the service.
Early childhood teachers also report being unhappy. An early childhood education state of the sector survey released in May found that 60 per cent of survey participants felt the quality of early childhood education was declining. One participant went as far as to call it “child farming not childcare” with inadequate teacher to child ratios and a focus on profit making being largely to blame.
Findings such as these are incredibly concerning and show just how important it is to give the early childhood education sector the attention and funding it needs.
The Covid-19 pandemic has also taken a significant toll on early childhood education. Prior to the pandemic, children’s participation in early learning had steadily increased over the previous 10 years with high numbers of children under 5 enrolled in an early learning service.
However, with lockdowns closing early childhood centres and little or no option to utilise online learning options, a real decline in attendance and subsequently profits hit many centres. During 2021, overall participation of four-year-olds declined by up to 8 per cent.
While older children have the capacity to engage in learning remotely using digital technologies, it is not so appropriate for children under five where so much of their learning takes place in a face-to-face social context with their peers and teachers. A recent decision announced by Auckland Council to close its council-funded early childhood education centres due to their failure to make a profit sadly reduces the value of early education to a single dimension of profit or loss.
This type of thinking fails to account for the inherent value early childhood education brings to not only the individual children and their families, but the wider community and indeed society more generally.
On the other hand, additional Government support to ease cost of living pressures by improving access to childcare assistance and allow greater attendance in early education is an important and much-needed investment.
The funding will allow more than 10,000 children to access support to attend early childhood education.
Quality early childhood education positively supports the social and emotional development of our youngest children, establishing a strong foundation for a lifetime of success in learning.
It helps children build confidence, and important skills that will help them become strong, happy, and successful in later life.
Additionally, it provides an extremely important parent and whānau support, with many parents reporting early childhood teachers as their most trusted and frequently used professional support for the guidance and care of their child.
Early childhood education is not a nice-to-have, an add-on to the real education that begins when a child starts school.
It is the vital cornerstone of New Zealand’s education system and should be valued as such.
- Jacqui Southey is the advocacy and research director at Save the Children New Zealand.
