Taskforce will study cost of early education

Education Minister Anne Tolley. Photo / Rotorua Daily Post

A taskforce has been set up to look at early childhood education funding and Labour says cuts will follow.

Education Minister Anne Tolley said the taskforce would review the effectiveness of spending and look for ideas about learning and report in March. It would:

* Review benefits from Government investments in early childhood education.

* Consider the efficiency and effectiveness of spending and possible improvements for Maori, Pasifika, and children from low socio-economic backgrounds.

* Develop innovative, cost-effective and evidence-based ways to support children's learning in early childhood and the first years of compulsory schooling.

* Make recommendations on proposed changes to funding and policy for early childhood education, and the costs, benefits and risks.

Labour MP Sue Moroney said the review would almost certainly lead to cost cutting.

"This taskforce has been set up without any consultation with the early childhood sector," she said. "The terms of reference have been set by ... a minister who has so far been happy to reduce the numbers of qualified teachers at each ECE centre and whose cost cutting will see increased fees for parents.

"If Anne Tolley was serious about having a taskforce on ECE, its terms of reference would include monitoring the effect on families of fee increases and the quality of education children receive after the number of qualified teachers has reduced."

Parents would end up paying more, she said.

Mrs Tolley said $1.3 billion would be spent on early childhood education next year.

"It's vital this money is well spent to ensure the greatest number of children gain access to ECE and fully benefit from it.

"The previous Government's ECE cost blowout saw funding treble but the number of children in ECE grew by less than 1 per cent. We owe it to New Zealand children to do better than that, particularly for our Maori and Pacific children and those in lower socio-economic backgrounds."

- NZPA