Educators say report not true picture

Childcare: Karen Geraets with her two sons, Samuel Maguire, 4, and Aaron Maguire, 6 months. Photo / Ben Fraser

A report highlighting the growing concern about early childhood education does not echo the work Rotorua centres are doing, local educators say.

The Child Forum report released this week points to major concerns about teacher-child ratios saying some centres are "mostly crowd management" or like "factory farming for children".

But ABC Kawaha Point centre manager Kate Forrest said there were many examples of successful early childhood education centres in Rotorua.

"The quality of education changes from centre to centre and the improvements that need to be made start by looking at the teachers and how they work together.

"It is my passion that all children should have the opportunity to be in an early childhood education setting and it is up to families to find out what type of setting suits them.

"We put a real emphasis on child development and value quality education and don't perceive our role as crowd management or just babysitting," she said.

Rotorua woman and early childhood educator Bex Knowles has worked in both a centre environment and a home care environment.

She also disagreed with the report. In her experience, the work being done in the sector was the "complete opposite", she said. "I have worked as an educator for the last 10 years and in my experience, the sector has made great strides forward, moving away from just babysitting, and putting more of a focus on developing the child and building relationships.

"The centre I worked for had small numbers and was attentive to every child's needs.

"I moved to home-based caring so I could be with my own children," she said.

Local mum Karen Geraets has put her now 4-year-old Samuel into both home-based and centre care.

She said both experiences had been "wonderful".

"Up until he was two years old we had Samuel in home-based care because we liked the idea of him getting lots of one-on-one attention.

"Now he goes to an early childhood centre and it has been really good for him to have that constant interaction with other kids.

"I am still on maternity leave with my 6-month-old but when I go back to work he will be looked after by family or home-based care until we feel he is ready to go to a centre."

-To read the full report go to www.childforum.com