Making Choices in Early Childhood Education a Gamble
Dec 1, 2022.
Parents are being urged to reduce the gamble with the quality of their child’s care by being more discerning with their choice of early childhood education centres.
A leading expert in quality early childhood education, Dr Sarah Alexander says that as parents return to work after having a baby and need childcare or seek an early start to their child’s education, they must do their homework first and go for a service that has high standards when it comes to practices and ethics.
“Relying on strangers to take good care of their child is a gamble that thousands of families take.
“Some ECE services tick more boxes for quality and are more focused on providing well for children and families than others,” Dr Alexander says.
In many services where quality is poor, the Education Review Office has previously reported that managers and educators may believe their service is operating well.
Moreover, external monitoring and quality assurance is light in the early childhood education sector.
While early childhood services must meet minimum standards for such things as staffing and equipment services are not regularly inspected by the Ministry of Education, who is responsible for licensing and ensuring services are operating safely and well. Inspections usually occur only after a service comes to its notice because of a serious incident, compliant, or the Education Review Office says it thinks it’s not operating safely for children.
Parents are not informed about the history and any problems with a service as details of any inspections and the outcomes of investigations into complaints are not made public by the Ministry.
So how is it possible to reduce the gamble?
To assist parents with knowledge of regulations and expectations for early childhood services and to learn about services in their area My ECE:
- supports parent learning about early childhood curriculum, teaching and care practices, management, staffing, and other important topics;
- invites parents and caregivers to rate and review their service;
- provides important details about services, such as on staffing; and
- offers the annual Parents’ Choice Awards.
We are all keen to see every child enjoy the best early childcare and education. It is lovely for services when they are acknowledged by parents and caregivers for doing well and this encourages other services to lift standards and raises the bar of quality in the sector.
* Get the Kiwi Parent Guide to choosing a quality early childhood service.
