The neo-liberal Nats want to cut the money from the ECE budget .. the background is something like this .... (I think)
The Government (Labour) encouraged ECE centres to employ qualified staff .. and to help existing staff gain qualifications - Labour set a ratio of qualified to unqualified teachers for each centre ... centres that employed more qualified staff got more money - so a centre with ten qualified staff got more money than a centre with four qualified staff and six unqualified staff (I don't know what the ratio is) ... and of course, qualified staff get paid more than unqualified staff ...
The Nats are saying that centres should run to the ratio and so some centres will have to replace qualified staff with unqualified staff because they will not be getting any more money than the minimum ratio of qualified to unqualified staff allows.
So, the choice for the centres is obvious - get rid of qualifed staff and replace them with unqualified staff or put the fees up ...
So the Nats can blame the centres, not themselves, in a typical piece of neo-liberal economics and quickstepping ... and avoiding the issue of qualified vs unqualified staff in early childhood education centres, possible the most important sector of our education system ...
"So if you meet me, have some sympathy, have some courtesy, have some taste ..."
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