Quality education

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 14, Issue 648, 6 August 1996, Page 4

Quality education

• As Kindergarten teachers we are pleased the Government publicly supports early childhood education. However, this is not reflected in the package offered to Kindergarten Associations to fund the short-falls of bulk funding. Looking closely at the package reveals how increased child sessions would severely compromise the quality of early childhood education offered to children. In order to receive the funding the government proposes, we would need to work an extra 40 sessions per year — an extra session per week. We would be quite happy to do this if the government funds an independent secretary , programme planner, evaluator and assessor of children' s progress, general administrator, parent educator/supporter and counsellor to cope with the work we will no longer have time to complete. Over the past six years the Kindergarten service has had to continually cope with the steady erosion of factors that directly affect the quality of early childhood education, eg high child/staff ratios, inadequate funding, increasing demands for parents/volunteers to struggle to keep their centres going. As advocates for young children we are not prepared to accept this "funding package' with strings attached. We refuse to let the Government abdicate its responsibilities to the youngest members of our society. Shelley Newson, Margie Dennehy, Cindy Hammond, Tara Lay-Buchanan, Waiouru Kindergarten.