It is widely recognised that the early years are important for a child’s development and educational success. Politically, this is reflected today in an emphasis on the promotion of children’s participation from birth in a licensed early childcare and education service (while parent education and support to provide early education and care at home is now given pretty much a back seat).

Nearly all children begin formal education before they start school and most attend ECE a minimum of 20 hours a week and many as much as 30 – 50 hours a week. Data collected on entry to school indicates that 95% of children have attended early childhood education. National Party policy going into the election is to raise that to 98% of all children by 2015.

Given the importance of the early years and the focus on increasing participation in ECE, a key role of government today is to support the early childhood sector well through funding and in other ways to enable it to function well for children. The alternative is that schools will be left to try to remedy an increasing number of children getting a poor early start.

The latest ChildForum survey on the state of early childhood education shows an increasing concern that the Government is intervening too much in the sector and that it is creating instability and fears for the future of ECE. As one respondent said, “The sector is in a constant state of flux”.

The nationwide survey had 241 respondents, including ECE service owners and managers, ECE workers and parents involved in ECE. The survey asked two key questions. Firstly, whether things were currently going well or badly at their service and, secondly, whether they felt things would improve or worsen for the sector in the next 12 months.

Increased stress

The over-riding concern among respondents was what was happening to the sector’s funding and what further policy changes might occur and what the impact might be. Many respondents reported that this was, in turn, causing an increase in stress levels and having an impact on the care and education of children.

Overall slightly more respondents (59%) said things were going well but, worryingly, more than two fifths (41%) thought things were going badly. The reduction of the qualified teacher target from 100% to 80% and the related funding losses for services were highlighted by many respondents as issues of concern. Several respondents said their services had to re-budget and cut costs in areas such as staffing, equipment maintenance and taking children on excursions. Some services were struggling due to increased competition from other services and were suffering from falling rolls.

Other problems included lack of funding for children with additional needs, lack of professional development and affordability for families. Unsurprisingly, respondents from Canterbury were also struggling to deal with the impact of the recent earthquakes

Optimism for the future was very low with only just under 4% of respondents saying they thought their service’s situation would improve in the next 12 months and that nothing would get worse. Thirty per cent thought some things would improve while others would get worse, but 40% felt things were only going to get worse. The remaining respondents either expressed uncertainty (e.g. “Who knows in this current climate”) or did not state what would likely worsen and improve.

Many felt that funding would continue to be tight and could actually worsen, leading to services having to cut back on teachers. The potential scrapping of the 20 hours ECE funding scheme was of particular concern. An increasing amount of compliance, borne from talk of new curriculums and assessment, rising costs and a lack of affordability for families were also worrying respondents. A perceived knock-on effect of these concerns was increased stress for staff and service owners and, in turn, a decline in the quality of care and education they provide.

Interestingly, the comments from respondents who said they thought things would improve showed that many of those improvements, such as improving teaching and developing new programmes, were likely to be internally generated by the services themselves.

Funding impact

Overall, the survey results show that government is not getting it right in its intervention in the early childhood education sector. The sector overall appears to feel that it has been hurt by recent changes to policy and funding and is worried about further changes such as those signalled by the government’s ECE Taskforce report.

One problem for the sector is that as the proportion of government funding has increased so, too, has service dependency on that funding. This means when the rules are changed or funding is cut; the impact on services is greater, putting stress on owners, staff and families. This is particularly true for some funding areas such as the 20-hours subsidy without which it appears many services fear they will lose large numbers of enrolments.

Perhaps more worryingly, the sector appears to be distracted by lack of funding and ever-changing government intervention and the instability this creates. The core functions of early childhood education services are the care and teaching of children, supporting parenting and assisting families, so it could be assumed that these would be the major focuses of any survey response. This survey suggests, however, that government interventions are getting in the way.

The questions in this report were asked as part of a wider survey of 300 respondents, which also included child and family, professionals, academics and community members as well as those working in and using the ECE sector. This wider survey asked another key question: What is the one thing government should do for early childhood education?

The responses to that question clearly reflect similar feelings to those shown in this survey. The top three wishes were:

• Restore previous funding for, and the target of, 100% qualified registered teachers in teacher-led ECE services

• Focus ECE policy not on saving costs or benefitting ECE providers but on ensuring the best standards for children alongside bringing in regular inspection

• Provide certainty and consistency in funding and support for all ECE service types, thereby taking stress off the sector and retaining choices for parents.

It seems that the setting up of more advisory groups, tinkering with funding systems and making changes to the curriculum as have all been proposed by the current government might not help. Instead, political parties should be looking to create the stability and clearer future that ECE services seem so much to want.

One answer might be for political parties to come together to agree on policy and funding. More clearly-defined funding structures and policy would mean the sector would not have to worry as much about what is around the corner.

Any government might also do well to base future policy development not on economic issues, or the interest of competing lobby groups, but on grounded and evidence-based research and expertise from its own departments.

Sector fed-up

Of course, it is unlikely that the parties would come together for ECE, so perhaps each political party should bear in mind when they develop their own ECE policies that the results of this survey show clearly that the sector is fed-up with a lack of clear funding and constant changes to policy.

Instead, as the following two comments from respondents suggest, it would welcome a more stable, clearly-defined long-term plan which would allow them more autonomy to run their services in a sensible way and focus on what really matters - educating and caring for the youngest members of our society.

“To provide the best service for all, we need to be able to focus on providing great programmes that inspire and give children the best opportunities to achieve and have fun!”

“Do we want an educated future? People who make informed choices? People who are able to challenge themselves daily? If this is YES, then let early childhood educators do their job! Support us, believe in us.”