Kaiako from kindergartens and other services, kindergarten parents, union activists, sector leaders, academics and others gathered this week for the Early Childhood Summit to discuss the perils of deregulation and privatisation in the early childhood sector.

The summit was jointly organised by our collective organisation, Kindergartens Aotearoa, and the union for early childhood education NZEI Te Riu Roa. The state of emergency in Wellington meant that the summit and a subsequent public meeting had to be held online.

The keynote speaker was Abigail Boyd, an MP from New South Wales who lifted the lid on scandals associated with early childhood services in Australia, which led to a parliamentary inquiry. 

She used her parliamentary powers to force the release of papers that showed widespread disregard of breaches of regulation in the sector, with a significant effect on safety. She also exposed widespread cost cutting measures at children’s expense, in terms of everything from staffing to children’s food.

Abigail argued that there is no place for corporate early childhood, as the motivation must always be maximising profit not the wellbeing or education and care of children.

You can watch the ABC documentary series here. 

The documents she uncovered revealed that occupancy targets wage targets revenue and profit targets and budget targets all come ahead of child wellbeing.

While New Zealand is looking at lowering qualifications for early childhood teachers, Australia’s cross party inquiry is expected to recommend improving staff qualifications, pay and stability to safeguard children’s wellbeing. Here’s a link to an interview she did with RNZ’s nine to noon programme: The Australian MP who blew the whistle | RNZ

New Zealand ECE researcher Professor Linda Mitchell also spoke at the summit. She said services owned by private equity firms such as Evolve Education and Provincial Education, should not receive Government funding as it was established their profit motive affected quality of care and education.

A study co-authored by Mitchell found Evolve Education, which includes about 100 ECE centres, spent 65% of revenue on staffing, while Whānau Manaaki Kindergartens spends 91% on staffing.

NZEI Te Riu Roa secretary Stephanie Mills said Government was on a path to replicate the Australian sector by reducing regulations and pay parity requirements for staff.

Other speakers at the forum included Riripeti Reedy, Paul Spoonley, Dr Ganesh Rajaram Ahirao, Dr Aroaro Tamati.

Parent campaigner from Australia, Georgie Dent from The Parenthood, who explained how parents have formed an organisation to ensure a parent voice, as corporate childcare does not meet the needs of families.

She spoke about how the non-negotiable aspects of quality, and answered questions about how the organisation was established to reflect the important whānau voice. Recordings of the

presentations will be made available shortly. A follow-up meeting is planned to discuss actions to win change.