New early childhood centres welcomed

Three new early childhood education centres will be built in Manukau but these will address just the tip of the problem of the region's poor participation rates in pre-school education, says Tanya Harvey, executive secretary of the Early Childhood Leadership Group.

Education Minister Anne Tolley yesterday announced funding for three new sites, at Mansell Senior School in Papakura, and Weymouth Primary and Homai Primary, both in Manurewa.

These are the first to be funded through the Ministry of Education's Counties Manukau Participation Project, targeting areas with low uptake of early childhood education.

Mrs Harvey said it was "just the start but at least it is giving the sector hope".

Depending on their licence, centres can take between 50 and 100 children, she said.

Mrs Harvey was pleased to see that schools were willing to house the centres on their sites. She said this would help with the transition into school and would draw the community into one place.

She said the project would also boost the economy of the area by providing building jobs.

It is expected that more centres will be established in South Auckland as $5 million has been budgeted for early childhood building projects in Counties Manukau this year and next.

Mrs Tolley said ensuring every child can take part in high-quality early childhood education was one of the Government's education priorities.

"New Zealand's early childhood participation rates are high overall by international standards, but some groups have low participation, including Maori, Pasifika, and those from low socio-economic backgrounds."

The new centres will be established at schools that have offered to host them. "This is a community-based approach - the previous Labour Government had told some schools to set up centres when they had no desire to do so," Mrs Tolley said.

"Increasing participation is not just about the number of spaces available - it's also about providing services that suit their communities, and about encouraging families and whanau to use those services."

Sarah Farquhar, chief executive of the Early Childhood Council, said it was encouraging to see the Government honour its promise of targeting funding to help families who could not afford early childhood education.

She hoped that alongside allocating money to the project it could look at whether there were any disincentives to existing early childhood providers setting up in the area, such as the Auckland Regional Public Health Service's air pollution guidelines, and whether there was a cost-effective way to encourage more widespread development of centres.

Hayley Whitaker, executive member of the education sector union NZEI, said it was good to see the Government taking responsibility for the provision of early childhood services, especially in areas such as Counties Manukau.

The Ministry of Education will be working with boards of trustees to develop the sites and select providers for the services. Work is expected to start within the next three months.