August 31, 2022
Early childhood workers struggle
Bicultural early childhood education training organisation Te Rito Maioha says early childhood teachers feel unsupported.
Chief executive Kathy Wolfe says the sector is struggling with workforce shortages because of Covid and winter illnesses, and kaiako feel undervalued in their pay packets.
Treasury documents show the Government did not fully fund pay parity in the May Budget so it could stay within a spending envelope.
Ms Wolfe says people still want to come into the profession.
“What we’re doing as an organisation in advocating for our early childhood services, employer and Kaiako is working alongside the Government to work through the challenges such as pay parity, workforce shortages, getting really good attraction into the profession but it’s just not happening as fast as we would have liked,” she says.
Kathy Wolfe