Early Education A Public Good

Early childhood education is a public good, rather than an investment opportunity for the private sector, says Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG). CPAG regards early childhood education as one way of mitigating child poverty in Aotearoa.

More high-quality, community-based not-for-profit early childcare centres are needed to support our education sector and our most vulnerable citizens - children.

CPAG was concerned to read about the deficiencies of the current system in the opinion piece in the NZ Herald yesterday (24 January) by Jacqui Southey from Save The Children New Zealand.

Declining attendance, unhappy early childhood staff, inadequate teacher to child ratios and a focus on profit in the early childhood sector, all exacerbated by Covid, made for sober reading. .

CPAG is not surprised. Three years ago we called for the government to nationalise early childhood education in response to the challenges presented by Covid and reports of profit over quality. A CPAG research paper by Caitlin Neuwelt-Kearns and Dr Jenny Ritchie called “Investing in Children? Privatisation and early childhood education in Aotearoa New Zealand” predicted that occupancy rates would decrease as a result of Covid. The researchers said then that the pursuit of profit had become more evident thanks to the pandemic.

Recent threats of closure of ten Auckland Council early childhood centres by Mayor Brown, and the lack of oversight of safety and quality nationwide point to a serious situation, where children’s well being is not being prioritised.

The impact of lower quality early childhood education is detrimental for all children but the impact can be even greater for children in low income communities according to Neuwelt-Kearns and Ritchie

CPAG supports Southey’s call for additional government support to improve access to child care and to promote greater attendance. Increased funding would allow more than 10,000 children to access support to attend early childhood education.