Govt cuts push up costs to parents

The Central Otago Kindergarten Association has been forced to raise costs to parents because of the Ministry of Education funding cuts to early-childhood education (ECE) announced in June.

Association manager Angela Jacobsen said fees for children attending in hours not covered by the Government's 20 Hours ECE scheme - which provides 20 free hours of ECE a week for 3 to 4-year-olds - would increase from January 1 next year.

In addition, she said the association would no longer subsidise fees for children under 3, and give occasional free hours above those funded by the Government.

"Now that the level of funding has been cut, the association can no longer sustain this subsidy to fees. The new fees will more accurately reflect the actual cost of the service."

Mrs Jacobsen said the association would also be closely monitoring equipment and resources budgets, but noted fees would "still be generally lower than private childcare and some community childcare fees".

Starting February 1, 2011, early-childhood services will receive funding for only 80% of qualified staff, which Mrs Jacobsen said meant a 20% loss in the association's operating budget as all kindergarten staff were qualified teachers.

Mrs Jacobsen anticipated the overall savings from these measures would be $138,000, which would "go some way to making up the $240,000 loss of government funding".

The Central Otago association runs six kindergartens - two in Alexandra, one in Cromwell, one at Hawea Flat and two in the Queenstown area.

It withdrew its home-based care service last month because of the budget cuts, and arranged for four parents to transfer to the Barnadoes KidStart service.

Education Minister Anne Tolley announced on Thursday an independent ECE task force had been established to review the effectiveness of spending and propose innovative ideas about learning.

"The previous Government's ECE cost blowout saw funding treble, but the number of children in ECE grew by less than 1%," Mrs Tolley said.

"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 back- grounds."

Mrs Jacobsen said while a comprehensive look at ECE issues was "probably overdue", the association remained concerned the Government "have taken away the target of 100% qualified teachers".

The task force will report to the minister in March 2011.

 - Joe Dodgshun