February 23, 2014
ECE funding just box ticking without more services
A provider of home-based education and care to young and vulnerable children says New Zealand needs to spend more on preventative services if it wants to raise achievement and lower crime and other negative social indicators.
Kevin Christie from Footsteps says the latest Salvation Army state of the nation report highlights uncomfortable truths about child poverty.
He says it also identified a disconnect between higher enrolments in early childhood education and education outcomes, indicating New Zealand was better at ticking boxes than tackling real problems.
"Unless you start to look at each child as an individual, you don’t achieve these great outcomes, and unless you get the achievement you are setting out to do, people are again criminalised. Criminalisation is due to much earlier on in their lives. That intervention that takes place when they are really young, that’s where we need to spend the money. That is the stuff that is the game changer, " Mr Christie says.
About half the children Footsteps works with are Maori or Pasifika.
FOR THE FULL INTERVIEW WITH KEVIN CHRISTIE CLICK ON THE LINK
http://www.waateanews.com/play_podcast?podlink=MTU2NTQ=
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