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Primary and early childhood union NZEI Te Riu Roa says a new report confirms its fears that the Government’s participation targets combined with under-funding are undermining quality.
The Child Forum report points to major concerns about teacher-child ratios and says some centres are “mostly crowd management” or like “factory farming for children”.
NZEI executive member Virginia Oakly says quality early childhood education is vital for children, particularly those from poorer backgrounds, but they are not getting it.
She says the government has been obsessed with getting more children into early childhood education and has been turning a deaf ear to the concerns of professionals.
The Child Forum report was based on a survey of more than 600 teachers.
It recommended the Education Ministry push the pause button on its efforts to get 98 percent participation until it can show that every child will experience quality care and education and problems with quality assurance have been addressed.
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