League tables ranking early childhood centres are feared as the Government addresses a "lack of accountability" in the sector.
Education Minister Anne Tolley said last night that an ECE Taskforce proposal for "mandatory performance reporting" was "not about league tables".
But early childhood education leaders said they were worried that toddlers would be required to work to a narrowed curriculum more focused on literacy and numeracy, instead of healthy character traits such as persistence, resilience and curiosity.
"We're very worried that the same thing that's happened with national standards [in primary schools] could happen with early childhood where you get a very narrowed curriculum," New Zealand Childcare Association chief executive Nancy Bell said.
A Government-appointed taskforce on early childhood education recommended last week that new performance reports on childcare centres be carried out at all of the country's 5152 ECE centres and be posted online for parents to easily compare quality.
The taskforce said there was "significant variability" in quality in the sector and performance needed to be made more transparent.
"Provision of accurate information to parents concerning the comparative performance of services will create another set of pressures for high-quality services," the taskforce report said.
"Whenever systems of this kind are used, task performance improves."
Mrs Tolley said the taskforce had highlighted serious problems with variability. "There is currently little accessible information for parents and no way of gauging if the system is working well."
The Government would consider the taskforce proposal for performance reporting and had already set aside $30 million in last month's Budget to improve information about the system and transparency for parents.
"This is not about league tables, it's about getting better information for parents and the taxpayer," Mrs Tolley said.
The number of early childhood services has grown by 14.6 per cent since 2006, and the average time children spend in centres has also gone up from 16.9 hours to 20.1 hours per week.
Mrs Bell said it "would be fantastic for parents" to be well-informed about what was happening in their child's centre but the professional view of what made a difference was "very different" to what parents believed worked.
"The things that are good predictors of good outcomes are not usually the things that parents pick." Poor governance, staff development and resources were often behind the lesser centres.
"We believe that parents should be able to get a really clear idea about the kind of service that their children are involved in, but not to the point that things get stuck up on websites and league tables are created and it's not accurate reporting."
The Government will announce plans for feedback on the taskforce report soon.
Author: John Hartevelt
- The Dominion Post