Latest news with #EarlyChildhoodNewZealand
RNZ News
3 days ago
- Business
- RNZ News
Early childhood sector facing 'dark future', pay parity to freeze for two years
Early Childhood Education teachers play a crucial role in educating young children, the Teaching Council says. Photo: RNZ / Cole Eastham-Farrelly The Teaching Council has spoken out, after the government watered down early childhood teachers' pay-parity arrangements. The professional body for teachers said the government must take care not to undermine a well-qualified early childhood sector. Chief executive Lesley Hoskin said early childhood teachers played a crucial role in educating young children. "We urge the government to proceed with caution with any changes that could make education and care centres less attractive places to work in for the qualified teachers that our children need. "Unless they are based upon a strong focus on meeting young children's learning needs, changes in this area risk undermining educational outcomes at primary, secondary and tertiary levels. They could also create a two-tier system, where only families that can afford higher costs receive better learning opportunities." Last year, the government cut relief teachers from pay parity and, this week, it announced newly qualified teachers could be placed on the lowest salary step , regardless of prior qualifications and experience. It also introduced a two-year moratorium to prevent services moving from a lower-paid to higher-paid tier of the graduated parity system. Early Childhood New Zealand Te Rio Maioha, which represented hundreds of early childhood centre owners and managers, said the sector faced a dark future as a result of the changes and the budget's below-inflation 0.5 percent increase to the sector's subsidies. Organisation chief executive Kathy Wolfe said the government demonstrated that it did not believe decades of evidence that showed high-quality ECE led to better outcomes for children. "This government appears to be saying that experience and education no longer matter, that quality early childhood education can be sacrificed in the name of government cost-cutting," she said. "The announcement to freeze pay parity for two years is also a further sign that the government's aim is to reduce their future investment commitments. "This is purely a fiscal decision for the government. Employers now cannot opt into funded higher parity options to value their teaching staff." Some ECE centre owners said pay parity was difficult to afford , because the associated government subsidies were inadequate. However, Ministry of Education figures showed the number of centres opting into the highest tier of parity had increased by 400 since 2023 to 1484 in March 2025. They also showed the sector employed 23,699 qualified teachers last year and 9610 people who worked with children in teaching roles, but were not qualified. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
Scoop
28-04-2025
- Politics
- Scoop
Minister Takes Steps To Support Teachers
Press Release – Early Childhood New Zealand We hope this announcement forms part of a larger education workforce strategy to encourage teachers to choose this profession, and for others, to remain in the profession. On behalf of the many teachers in Early Childhood Education and Primary, we applaud the Education Minister's move to fund teacher registrations and practising certificates that teachers currently bear. 'This is a very positive move by Minister Stanford,' says Te Rito Maioha CE Kathy Wolfe, 'this will help some 40,000 teachers, providing an incentive for teachers to remain, and join the teaching workforce.' 'We hope this announcement forms part of a larger education workforce strategy to encourage teachers to choose this profession, and for others, to remain in the profession.' 'The funding for three years to reduce the burden on our teachers is a significant step in the right direction, especially as the Ministry of Education has admitted that the sector will have an undersupply of 750 primary teachers and 500 secondary teachers this year, as well as the shortages in ECE.' 'Every lever must be pulled to ensure Aotearoa maintains a high-quality workforce dedicated to teaching our tamariki and young people – putting their educational success at the heart of everything we do.' 'While this announcement is significant and welcome, the Minister of Education needs to reassure the ECE teaching workforce that her commitment to a quality education system is not undermined by Recommendation Ten in the ECE Regulations Review.' 'That recommendation risks lowering the quality of early childhood education and undermining the teaching profession in Aotearoa. However, we will hold Minister Stanford accountable for ensuring that all teachers in ECE are qualified through initial teacher education. We take some reassurance from her statement reported in the media on 12 February, where she said, 'It is absolutely essential that we have qualified teachers in the room if we want to get outcomes for children before they come to school.'' Minister Stanford went onto say, 'We must make sure that early childhood education is just that – education and not a baby sitting service because if you want young people to be school-ready and hit the ground running they need to have good oral language skills, good numeracy skills and self-regulation and that requires qualified teachers in the classroom.' Minister Stanford, RNZ Removing teacher requirements could be devastating, Teaching Council says. 'It's great to see Minister Stanford's commitment to a high-quality teaching workforce,' says Mrs Wolfe. 'However, we urge the Minister to work with Minister Seymour to ensure today's positive intent is not cancelled out by the concerns of ECE teachers as they worry about their professional qualifications being undervalued or watered down to reduce the teaching shortage and reduce costs. Teacher shortages are not caused by having a qualification and a qualified workforce.' 'The uncoupling of funding from ITE qualifications is a significant threat to both the quality delivery of early learning, and to the profession of the teaching workforce. Such a policy will have a significant unintended consequence of undermining the profession, an outcome that would exacerbate the current teacher shortage due to undervaluation.' 'Minister Stanford acknowledged a teacher shortage following the Ministry of Education's significant error in the 2023 Teacher Demand and Supply Planning Project, underscoring the urgent need to prioritise teacher retention and recruitment across the entire education sector, zero to eighteen. Today's announcement is good news and a step in the right direction, however, we look forward to working with the Minister and Ministry as more needs to be done,' says Mrs Wolfe. Notes: This funding will cover the annual costs over a three-year period, including: • New registration and provisional certificates (domestic): $1.60m • Renewal of practising certificates: $13.53m • Limited Authority to Teach: $0.430m • Fee and levy including surcharge to move from provisional to full certificate: $2.03m • A one-off cost of $0.500m to make any necessary changes to the Teaching Council's IT systems to implement this initiative. Recommendation 10:
