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Part-day care for preschoolers is threatened by the Government's 20 free hours of early childhood education, because centres are focusing on all-day care to get more money.
The policy, which comes into force tomorrow, will result in cheaper childcare for some families with 3- and 4-year-olds.
But some child care centres said the funding rates were too low for them to join, and yesterday experts said sessional centres - which offer sessions of up to four hours - would be hardest hit.
Sessional teacher-led centres will get less Government money per hour per child than all-day centres. They were also less able to offset costs by increasing charges outside the 20 free hours because children were not there long enough.
All centres could set optional charges, but could not force parents to pay extra.
The Government will fund centres for up to 20 hours a week and six hours a day for 3 and 4-year-olds at between $4.28 and $10.89 an hour for each child.
Early Childhood Council chief executive Sue Thorne said a survey of its 1000 privately run and community based members this week showed 19 per cent of sessional centres planned to become part of the scheme, compared with 62 per cent of all-day centres.
"The rates are obviously an issue," said Ms Thorne.
Childcare Association chief executive Nancy Bell said a survey of its 450 members last week found 78 per cent planned to participate, benefiting 6000 children.
Ms Bell said sessional centres were hardest hit by the funding rates and some were considering moving to full day licences.
National Party early childhood education spokeswoman Paula Bennett said private centres running sessions were applying for all-day licences to be better off.
"It's a shame," said Ms Bennett. "The sessions often back up the role you are doing as a stay-at-home parent, they give you some respite, and they do offer another level of teaching."
A Ministry of Education spokesman said the different rates for sessional and all-day centres reflected the different ratios of carer to child.
All-day centres had to have more staff, so got more money, he said.
Child Forum Research Network researcher Sarah Farquhar said parents would lose flexibility in choosing what hours they wanted to use.
"It's going to result in the extension of kindergarten into full-day childcare services," she said. "We are going to see a very rapid decline in small, community-based, part-day centres and playcentres."
Auckland Kindergarten Association general manager Tanya Harvey said more kindergartens might seek all-day licences but run "part days" just longer than the four-hour threshold.
She said teacher shortages could thwart the plan because all-day centres had to have a higher staff-to-child ratio.
Figures on how many children would be covered by the scheme will be issued on Monday.
Education Minister Steve Maharey said in Parliament this week the figure would be less than 86,000 when it started, but was expected to rise.
A source close to the ministry said the ministry knew the number of centres that had signed up for advance payments, which had already gone through, but the number of children in the scheme would not be known until later in the year when rolls were checked.
The number to be revealed on Monday would come from a conservative estimate supplied by the centres.
He said the well-guarded number "is better than what [National Party leader] John Key is hoping".
$80 a week out of pocket without the Government help
Gina Couper is gutted her family is set to miss out on free childcare for youngest child Saskia.
The North Shore family were "typical middle class", said Mrs Couper, and surviving on one income while she prepared to launch a business.
They pay around $120 for 2-year-old Saskia's three days a week at Magic Garden Childcare Centre in Browns Bay and had hoped for a reprieve after her birthday in December.
Mrs Couper said she was told she would save around $80 a week if the centre had signed on. "It's the difference between living within our means and racking up the credit card debt."
The family returned from more than a decade in Australia last year.
Husband Marshall is heading a start-up business and their eldest child, Jade, 4, started school early.
A member of Magic Garden's parent committee, Mrs Couper said the centre was not opting in to the free hours scheme because the Government funding did not cover costs. She said she understood that asking for optional charges or donations was too unreliable, but it still hurt.
Moving Saskia elsewhere wasn't an option. "I wouldn't just go to a centre that provided the subsidy," she said.
"Firstly for me comes the quality of the education, then secondly is the subsidy."
Places are tight at centres, with three others Mrs Couper considered late last year completely full.
Subsidy 'better than good pay rise'
The Barraclough family of Takanini will be about $80 a week better off when the free hours scheme kicks in.
"It's fantastic, it's better than a good pay rise," says Di Barraclough.
The biochemist's children Tristram, 3, and Maggie, 1, are fulltime - nine hours a day, five days a week - at the Minimarc Childcare Centre linked to her workplace, the Mt Albert Research Centre.
"We live quite a long way from Mt Albert, so the subsidy we'll get will offset our petrol costs."
The family's fortnightly childcare bill of $587 drops to $423 when the scheme starts next week.
With husband Michael working as a product design engineer for Fisher & Paykel Healthcare, the family aren't eligible for Working for Families childcare help.
"We have an Auckland mortgage, so we're getting there," says Mrs Barraclough.
Minimarc head teacher Meg Moss says the Barracloughs are typical of the centre's largely low to middle income clients.
She calculated that the Government's offering was a little more than the rate the centre could cope with without charging a subsidy.
