Matariki is a time for new beginnings and this week we welcomed Koka Erana Haerewa to the team! Erana ran a play group in Ruatorea for seven years, has recently completed her Diploma in ECE and comes to us from Te Whare Whai Hua, the ECE centre attached to the school for young parents at Lytton High School.

Our messages to John Key, Anne Tolley and Dr Pita Sharples during their visit today:

1. 1. Our centre will have to reduce the quality of education offered or close down if any cuts are made to ECE funding and subsidies.
2. 2. Change the MOE funding formula to properly recognise the essential role in immersion ECE of first language Te Reo speakers – this should be at least $25,000 per immersion centre for a part-time role.
3. 3. Maintain support for Māori and Pasifika participation by increasing ECE subsidies for beneficiaries who want quality early childhood education but cannot afford it.
4. 4. Don’t cut WINZ childcare subsidies for working families /middle income earners
5. 5. Don’t cut the top funding band for centres that have 80-100% qualified teachers.
6. 6. Don’t make the 20 hours ECE means tested.

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• Te Puna Reo o Puhi Kaiti is the only full immersion Te Reo Māori early childhood education with a full complement of trained and qualified teachers that is available in Te Tairawhiti.

• Our whanau have worked very hard, with significant funding from individual whanau, the wider community and government, to get to where we are today – but our budget is on a knife edge and any funding cuts will undermine the viability of our Puna Reo forcing us to lower the quality of service we can offer, or in a worst case scenario, we will have to close down.

• We want to increase participation of tamariki from our neighbourhood but need a change in the funding regime to make it affordable for whanau who may have only seasonal work to exercise their right to a quality education i Te Reo Māori.

• We cannot pay all staff NZEI rates on current funding. If cuts are made we are unlikely to retain staff who may move to centres that charge higher fees and quality ECE will be only for the rich and not for whanau in this community.

• The National Party promised before the last election that childcare costs would not increase if they were elected. Our hourly rate of $4.00 is the average for ECE in Gisborne and for many whanau it is already too expensive.

• Our nannies are essential staff in an immersion Māori language education environment but they are invisible in MOE funding formula that only take account of teaching staff who have recognised training and qualifications. We want to employ at least one nanny and believe MOE funding should recognise their essential role within the Puna Reo. The funding for total immersion centres of $2,000 per annum does not do justice to the expertise and critical contribution made by our nannies.

Click the image above to see some of our photos on Flickr…