NZ – Child support system needs to be fairer

The Government is seeking to make it easier and fairer for parents to make child support payments – but also make it harder to avoid stumping up.

Revenue Minister Peter Dunne today released a discussion document, Supporting Children, outlining wide-ranging proposals to change the system.

Parents owe about $2 billion but only about $600,000 of that is unpaid child care payments while the rest is penalties.

Mr Dunne said the scheme, which arranges financial support for the care of 210,000 children, needed to be fairer. At the moment, for example, a dad might care for a child before and after school every day but because he did not have them for 40 percent of nights (the current test) he was not considered to have shared care.

One of the options was to change the measure to a tiered system starting as low as 14 percent of nights and recognising other periods of time.

Other options around changing payments calculations included using an estimate of how much it cost to raise a child as a basis for payments, and taking the income of both parents into account – not just that of the absent parent.

Mr Dunne said most of the principal payments were made – 89 percent – but there were issues with penalties building up.

Options to tackle payment, penalties and debt included:

* making it compulsory for child support payments to be automatically deducted from salary and wages;

* reducing penalties after people made repayments for a reasonable length of time;

* providing an amnesty on penalty fees for people who pay the whole original debt;

* allowing penalties to be written off in some cases – for example, when someone is ill.

“An important part of getting the scheme right will be creating a situation where paying parents are more likely to comply with their obligations voluntarily,” Mr Dunne said.

“They are more likely to do that if they see their obligations as fair, transparent and reasonable – and not based upon some formula that seems to have no regard for their individual circumstances.”

The document also looked at tightening up on non-parents claiming child support – in some cases teens have left home and set up with people parents did not approve of but who they found they had to pay.

Mr Dunne said the scheme was introduced 18 years ago and was “outdated and sometimes unfair”.

Families were often more complex: both parents were more likely to be working and often separated fathers had a greater role caring for children than in the past.

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It was better if parents could reach their own arrangements but the scheme was a good backstop when that could not be worked out, he said.

The proposals would not please everyone but both parents had to share responsibility. Officials are trying to improve the tracking of absentee parents – about 27 percent of debtors are in Australia and 2 percent in other parts of the world.

The proposals, if adopted, would be more costly for Inland Revenue to administer.

Chief Families Commissioner Carl Davidson said parents needed support to continue to parent together as about 21 percent of households with dependent children were single-parent.

He said child support should be paid directly to the carer parent not through Inland Revenue and overseas experience showed people were more happy to pay when they saw the money going directly to their children rather than government departments.

He also said the system needed to account better for changing circumstances and flexibility around who paid what.

Every Child Counts spokeswoman Deborah Morris-Travers welcomed the proposals and said children in single parent homes were over-represented in poverty statistics.

She called on the Government to drop the domestic purposes benefit penalty for women who would not name the dad.

The discussion document will be on Inland Revenue’s website with submissions closing on October 29 and legislation would be introduced some time next year.

Labour’s Stuart Nash said National had campaigned “hysterically” on the issue and was now taking a leisurely approach to fixing problems.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/4086847/Child-support-system-needs-to-be-fairer

UK – Work Matters: Management Focus – Boost for play

SkillsActive has come up with a three-tiered, bite-sized approach to playwork qualifications, reports Karen Faux.

Earlier this summer, SkillsActive published a report, Playwork People 4, which found that more than 40 per cent of playworkers do not have a playwork qualification. So employers who are keen to recruit more staff with specific expertise in play will doubtless welcome the launch of the Level 2, 3 and 4 Award, Certificate and Diploma in playwork, developed by SkillsActive. Candidates now have the opportunity to pursue a three-tiered approach to learning at each level.

The award represents an induction, the certificate attests that learners are ‘ready’ for work and the diploma that they are ‘competent’.

Employers told SkillsActive they needed more staff who understood the principles and values of playwork and who were committed to developing a career in this area. They said playwork qualifications needed to provide a clearer picture of the skills that had been acquired.

To ensure the new awards meet the needs of employers, SkillsActive recently undertook a full review of the playwork national occupational standards, consulting across the playwork sector – with employers, training providers and playworkers themselves.

Having developed the new qualifications with key partners, SkillsActive is confident it has created a user-friendly, bite-sized approach to learning, which could close the skills gaps. At all levels, the units were pulled together by a technical reference group and at Level 3 and 4 the units were sent to awarding bodies to be developed into qualifications. New units at Level 3 cover adventure play, play rangers and playwork for younger children.

Uzma Anglin, SkillsActive communications manager, says, ‘In response to employer feedback, we have ensured that playwork principles are contained in a specific unit, so learners can use it as a standalone qualification.’

She adds, ‘Employers will benefit because qualifications will be available in bite-sized chunks, which means staff will be able to study flexibly, to suit themselves, their employers and the settings they work in.

‘These playwork qualifications are the only ones which fully equip learners to work in out-of-school clubs, holiday playschemes, adventure playgrounds and play-based facilities for school-aged children,’ she says.

SkillsActive is in discussion with the CWDC to achieve recognition of the Level 2 Certificate and Level 3 Diploma as full and relevant for practice in early years registered settings, which would mean they will be accepted in nurseries as well as out-of-school clubs.

Level 3 will be available this October, Level 4 is due to be published by January 2011.

FURTHER INFORMATION

www.skillsactive.com/playwork/qualifications/qualifications_development

http://www.nurseryworld.co.uk/news/bulletin/NurseryWorldUpdate/article/1025161/?DCMP=EMC-CONNurseryWorldUpdate

UK – Government urged to rethink school starting age

Educational experts are urging the Government to rethink the age at which children start school, to close the gap between summer-born children and older peers.

Tim Oates, of Cambridge Assessment, which published a review of research into birthdate effects last year, believes that the school starting age should be based around the development of ‘executive function’ in children, the ability to monitor, plan and reflect, which typically occurs at around the age of four-and-a-half.

Mr Oates said, ‘The gap in attainment between summer-born and autumn-born children is a function of their being young for their year group. The evidence points to there being a spurt in the development of executive function at around the age of four-and-a-half. If you push down the onset of intensive formal education too far, some children will not develop this capacity and struggle with the demands of formal schooling.’

His views were backed by a new review of birthdate effects on education and school policy, published by the Department for Education in July. This found that the gap between the number of autumn-born children and those born in August who achieved a good level of development in the EYFS profiles is 24 percentage points. This gap falls to eight percentage points at Key Stage 2 and six percentage points between autumn-born and summer-born children who achieve five or more grades A*-C at GCSE.

Summer-born children were found to be significantly more likely to be identified as having a special educational need than older classmates. The most disproportionate SENs in summer-born children are moderate and specific learning difficulties, speech, language and communication needs and ‘unclassified’ needs.

The study found that gaps in attainment were only due to summer-born children being comparatively younger at the time they were assessed, not to how old they were when they started school.

A spokesperson for the DfE said, ‘We are still considering policy on summer-born children. In the meantime, from September 2011, all local authorities will be required to offer children a place in Reception from the September following the child’s fourth birthday. Parents will continue to have a choice on whether to defer and, if so, can continue to access 15 hours’ free nursery education from a range of providers.’

http://www.nurseryworld.co.uk/news/bulletin/NurseryWorldUpdate/article/1025135/?DCMP=EMC-CONNurseryWorldUpdate

UK – ‘Don’t change the EYFS’, practitioners say

There is ‘overwhelming’ support among most early years practitioners for the EYFS framework, new Government research by the Institute of Education suggests.

The study commissioned by the DCSF and published by the current Government, was carried out to find out the views all those working with the framework throughout the children’s workforce, ahead of a planned review of the EYFS this year.

In July children’s minister Sarah Teather announced a review of the EYFS led by Dame Clare Tickell.

The report, Practitioners’ Experiences of the Early Years Foundation Stage, concluded that there was ‘overwhelming satisfaction with the current requirements,’ but noted that there were criticisms of the framework’s implementation.

It added, ‘The majority of respondents would like to see only minor changes in the EYFS, and would prefer “no change” to radical change in the current requirements.

Many of the dissatisfactions expressed by practitioner groups stem from the implementation of the EYFS rather the documentation itself, which is widely viewed as embodying the beliefs, principles and practices to which most practitioners adhere.’

The areas of learning were found to be ‘generally appropriate’ but there was some criticism of the levels set for the early learning goals for Communication, Language and Literacy and the Problem-solving, Reasoning and Numeracy goals.

The report said, ‘Both teachers and headteachers disliked the strong emphasis on emergent literacy and numeracy (CLL, PSRN) and felt that these goals tended to be pursued at the expense of personal, social and emotional development.’

Practitioners also said that they found that the need for assessments against the EYFS Profile, were ‘increasingly problematic’ in Reception ‘and practitioners attempt to map children’s individual developmental trajectories on to a scale which many practitioners regard as ill-founded, illogical or inappropriate’.

The research took place during the first 18 months of the framework, between September 2008 and March 2010 and involved 190 attending focus groups and subsequent one-to-one interviews with 42 practitioners.

A Government consultation was launched in August, inviting nurseries, childminders, parents and all those working with the EYFS to contribute to their views on the framework to feed into the review. The consultation closes at the end of the month.

http://www.nurseryworld.co.uk/news/bulletin/NurseryWorldUpdate/article/1025260/?DCMP=EMC-CONNurseryWorldUpdate

Politics is killing the world’s children

I recently met a woman called Opa, in a tiny village a few hours inland from Madang on the east coast of Papua New Guinea. World Vision had trained her as a birth attendant, but her fellow-trainee had died and she said she was now unable to attend to all of the community’s birthing needs. I looked around at the group of nursing mothers and asked how many had children who had died. Hands shot up, and the uniform reply was ”plenty”.

By contrast, the average pregnant Australian woman – if there is such a thing as an ”average” pregnancy – could expect to see a midwife at least half a dozen times over nine months, as well as a doctor or a gynaecologist if she needed to. Under-five child deaths are almost unheard of, particularly deaths from preventable diseases.

This is not the case in many parts of the world. The tragic, preventable deaths of 9 million children every year is one of the world’s largest problems, and this week it has landed on Melbourne’s doorstep, where a UN health conference is under way at the Melbourne Conference Centre.

The conference, entitled Advance Global Health – Achieve the Millennium Development Goals, brings together more than 300 non-governmental organisations from more than 70 countries. Some 1500 delegates are exploring the challenges of meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – the world’s blueprint for halving global poverty by 2015.

It is the beginning of a last ditch effort to get Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5 back on track for their 2015 target. The goals’ aim to slash child and maternal mortality rates. But despite some recent successes, there are still millions of mothers losing their children to preventable diseases before they turn five.

Melbourne was chosen to host the conference – only the third time it has been held away from New York — because the city is without peer in the field of child health. Melbourne is home to the Burnet Institute, the Nossal Institute, and the Royal Children’s Hospital – some of the world’s leading thinkers on saving children’s lives. It is also home to many of Australia’s leading charities in this field.

The knowledge these organisations can share is vital in combating this tragic situation. But the reality is that agencies like World Vision can’t turn back the tide on child mortality rates unless governments in both developing and developed countries start lifting their weight: overall global donor aid for maternal, newborn and child health accounts for only 3 per cent of global aid.

At present, there is no shortage of high-level declarations and commitments from donor countries, but in practice donor pledges on health have become a debased currency. It is politics, not poverty, that is killing the world’s children.

Only three weeks after the Melbourne meeting, the world’s leaders will gather at the UN General Assembly in New York to review progress towards the MDGs. There they have the opportunity to restore momentum to the fight on preventable child deaths.

At a global level, rich countries need to increase their commitment to health from the current level of $US16 billion a year to $US42.5 billion by 2015 if they’re to meet the health MDGs in all developing countries. To put this funding requirement in context, it is equivalent to just 4 per cent of the fiscal stimulus package announced by the G20 for 2009.

But it’s not just about aid volume. We also need to get smarter about how we spend our aid dollars on health. For example, a lot of the political energy and donor funding in recent years has been directed towards vertical programs to address specific diseases – particularly HIV, tuberculosis and malaria. These efforts have often yielded significant results – not least the more than 4 million people who are now receiving antiretroviral treatment for HIV and AIDS – and need to be sustained.

Yet at the same time, key causes of child deaths such as undernutrition, poor sanitation and lack of hygiene have been woefully neglected. For example, despite undernutrition being a factor in over a third of all child deaths, in 2007 donors allocated just 1.5 per cent of aid for health to nutrition. We have failed to prioritise family care within communities, reflecting the fact that in poor countries most antenatal, postnatal and child care activities take place in the community rather than a hospital.

This Melbourne conference is a critical moment for the world to set the fight against poverty back on track so we do not fail the world’s most vulnerable people. With the MDG end-date only five years away, the care of pregnant women in Victoria should already be a right shared by women the world over. Sadly for women like Opa though, until developed countries start demonstrating genuine political will to solve this problem, such care remains the domain of a privileged few.

Tim Costello is chief executive of World Vision.

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/contributors/politics-is-killing-the-worlds-children-20100901-14n0z.html

US – Police to promote preschool

Three Polk County law enforcement leaders today will urge more spending on preschool as a way to trim special education costs.

Iowa could save up to $100 million in special education costs by directing more money to quality preschool classes, according to a report that will be released today by West Des Moines Police Chief Jack O’Donnell, Polk County Sheriff William McCarthy and Polk County Attorney John Sarcone.

All are members of Fight Crime: Invest in Kids, a national anti-crime organization that produced the report.

Iowa spends nearly $1 billion a year on special education services, the study shows.

Iowa taxpayers will spend about $60 million this year on state-supported preschool classes.

A $250 million investment of federal and state money and payments from families will cut special education spending because children who enroll in well-run preschool classes are more likely to succeed in school, the study says.

The study points to Illinois and Michigan preschool programs that were credited with lowering special education referrals by as much as 43 percent.

The difference is more dramatic for children whose behavior problems, rather than disabilities, landed them in special education, the study said.

Law enforcement leaders say U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Ia., can make a difference.

As chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, Harkin can press for a shift to a public education system that includes preschool as Congress rewrites part of federal education law.

http://blogs.desmoinesregister.com/dmr/index.php/2010/09/01/police-to-promote-preschool/

US – Samsung making $1 million donation to the United Way

Samsung Electronics Co. is making a $1 million donation today to United Way Capital Area, money the nonprofit will use to expand its initiatives in early education for underprivileged children.

It is the biggest single donation to the United Way in several years and a declaration of Samsung’s intention to play a higher-profile community role in Central Texas.

In the past, “we would do something good for the community, but quietly,” said Woosung Han , president of Samsung’s Austin subsidiary. Now, that is changing.

The South Korean chipmaker is one of the region’s most important tech employers. It has invested $9 billion in Austin since opening its first plant here in 1996, including the recent announcement of a $3.6 billion expansion of its Northeast Austin manufacturing complex.

The donation is a way of celebrating the expansion, which will increase Samsung’s Austin employment by 600 jobs to 1,600 by next year. Its local payroll is expected to grow from $70 million a year to $112 million.

Oh-Hyun Kwon , president of Samsung’s South Korea-based global semiconductor business, will present the donation today at a lunch at the Hilton Austin Hotel. Other participants will include Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell and Gov. Rick Perry.

Samsung has marked previous major investments in Austin with events such as a rodeo and a concert by singer LeAnn Rimes.

This time, company officials decided that a charitable gift would be more appropriate, given the challenging economy.

“It is a different climate today,” said Catherine Morse, general counsel and public affairs director for Samsung’s Austin operations. “There is a lot of pain in the community, especially in the nonprofit community. Rather than throw a party for ourselves, we said: Let’s celebrate by giving to the underprivileged children of Austin in this way.”

The money will go to United Way’s Success by 6 initiative, which supports programs designed to give preschool children the boost they need to be ready for elementary school.

They include the Faith Presbyterian Child Development Center on East Oltorf Street, which receives money from the United Way so it can offer child care services at reduced rates for lower-income families.

Success by 6 helped more than 9,700 children last year, and the Samsung donation will allow another 3,000 children to receive help in the next two to three years, said Ann Taylor, a United Way spokeswoman.

Ken Gladish, executive director of the Austin Community Foundation, said the Samsung donation is significant.

“It’s very big,” he said. “It’s a terrific thing for the United Way, and I would tip my hat to Samsung for its it commitment to the community.”

The United Way has undergone a major transition during the past few years. Several years ago, the local organization — which traditionally had provided grants for basic-needs services at local charities — began funding programs that focused on education, financial stability and health. It also has laid off more than a dozen employees since 2008 because of sagging donations.

The Samsung gift sends a strong message to other donors, Gladish said.

“It demonstrates confidence in the strategy and direction of the organization,” he said.

In 2009, the nonprofit raised $15.3 million from all sources.

It has received $1 million donations in the past. The Michael and Susan Dell Foundation contributed that amount or slightly more each year from 2000 through 2005, Taylor said. Another foundation made $1 million gifts in 2001 and 2005, each spread out over four years.

Economist Jon Hockenyos noted that Samsung’s investment in Austin comes during a time when high-tech manufacturing jobs are declining.

“We’re not making as much stuff in the tech sector here anymore, but Samsung is the exception to that,” he said.

Partly because big semiconductor plants require support companies, Hockenyos estimates that direct and indirect employment from Samsung in Austin will reach about 6,500 jobs next year. He studied Samsung’s impact in a report for the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce.

http://www.statesman.com/business/technology/samsung-making-1-million-donation-to-the-united-890716.html

UK – Early Years: The cost of extending free childcare

All three- and four-year-olds in England will be entitled to 15 hours of free childcare a week from 1 September. Ross Watson asks what providing an extra 2.5 hours of free childcare will mean for parents and providers.

Two-and-a-half hours of free childcare a day is not enough time to get anything done, according to Belle Kaur, whose three-year-old son Jason currently attends the nursery at Fox Hollies Children’s Centre in Acocks Green, Birmingham, each morning. “It is hell doing the day-to-day essentials like shopping. He has tantrums in the car and in the shopping centres,” she says.

Like every other threeand four-year-old in England, Jason is currently eligible for 12.5 hours of childcare a week under the government’s free entitlement scheme. Kaur uses her free hours over five days, paying extra for Jason to stay longer on Wednesdays and Fridays.

But from 1 September the Kaurs will be eligible for an extra 2.5 hours of childcare a week under government plans to extend the free entitlement to 15 hours a week for all threeand four-year-olds. The new rules are also more flexible, allowing parents to use all their hours over a minimum of three days if they wish. Local authorities are also encouraged to work around the needs of individual families, even allowing parents to use their free childcare allowance for up to 10 hours a day.

Kaur believes the changes will boost her family’s quality of life. She sufferers from fibromyalgia, a debilitating condition that affects her muscles and ligaments, and the extra hours will give her a much-needed rest and allow Jason to receive further professional support for his speech and language needs while at nursery. “I’ll be sending Jason to nursery on Monday, Wednesday and Friday for free, keeping him at home on Tuesday and only paying for him on Thursday,” Kaur says. “I have three days to do the essentials like shopping, cleaning and getting some rest in, while Jason has more routine and more time to improve his learning and understanding.”

In north London, mother of two Monica Patel has been able to take advantage of the flexible 15 hours of free childcare for the past year. Patel lives in the London borough of Brent, one of the 19 areas to test plans to extend the free entitlement. Her four-year-old son Ravi used to attend his nursery from 8am until 6pm Monday to Friday, but thanks to the added flexibility of the new system, she is now able to use all her free hours over four days a week and stay at home on the remaining day with her son. “I was able to pull Ravi out of nursery on a Friday, knowing I could still use all of my free hours across the rest of the week,” she says. “Previously he had to attend every day to get all his free hours – it was too rigid.”

Pressure on providers

Last year, the Department for Children, Schools and Families’ evaluation of 14 of the pilot areas found there was an increased parental demand for extending the free entitlement. More than one-third of childcare providers experienced more demand from parents as a result of taking part in the pilot scheme. And almost half of the parents who took advantage of the extended hours said it made it easier for them to work and more financially viable for them to hold down jobs.

However, the reaction of the pilot childcare providers has been mixed. In February 2009, an evaluation carried out by the previous government claimed that almost a quarter of providers were in better financial health as a result of government-funded childcare and only eight per cent were worse off. But fast forward two months to April 2009, and market intelligence providers Laing and Buisson revealed that 62 per cent of nurseries felt the funding they got from their local authorities to deliver free childcare did not cover their costs.

Emma Beard manages Fox Hollies, the 50-place nursery that Jason Kaur attends. She remains concerned about recovering the full cost of offering the extended free entitlement. “One of the ways the extension is likely to impact our budget is through the cost of catering,” she says. “The cost of dinner is built into our fees because children who only come for 2.5 free hours a day do not stay for lunch. But soon people will stay all day without paying anything so we need to find a way to cover the cost of meals.”

The nursery will also need to look at getting more staff to cover the potential influx of children wishing to stay all day. Currently, parents can use their free hours at Fox Hollies between 9.30am and 12pm, or between 1pm and 3.30pm. The move to 15 hours has increased demand for places at the nursery and with the new flexibility, Beard may have parents wanting to use their free entitlement all at the same time.

“We could effectively have the whole nursery full by 8.30 in the morning. So we need to look at our staffing and get more banked staff in to cover shifts,” she says. “I would always look at having the same people in to get consistency. The trouble though is if it’s not a full-time job, people come and go.”

According to the National Day Nurseries Association (NDNA), Beard’s predicament is all too common. “The message from our members is they don’t believe they’re going to get funding that covers their costs,” says Claire Schofield, NDNA’s director of policy.

According to its research, the average cost for nurseries to provide the free entitlement is £4.52 per hour, compared to the average funding level of £3.58 per hour. That means nurseries face a shortfall of 94p on average for every free hour of childcare they provide. “It’s a very difficult situation to be in because the loss of £1 per child per hour can add up to several thousand pounds a year and make nurseries unsustainable,” Schofield says.

Government assistance

Nurseries used to charge parents “top-up” fees to ensure they did not make a loss on free hours, but last year’s code of practice outlawed charging extra amounts.

The previous government also tried to solve the problem by developing the early years single funding formula in 2008. The formula ensures that funding for free childcare is given to providers based on the number of children who attend their facility, not the number of places they offer. This was meant to prevent council-run nurseries getting more funding due to their excess of unfilled places. But the new payment structure, which was due to take effect in April 2010, was delayed after it transpired that the changes would cripple council-run nurseries without really improving the situation for other providers.

Schofield says the majority of NDNA members deliver the free entitlement but many are considering pulling out. She wants the government to temporarily lift the ban on top-up fees until the funding issues are resolved. She believes this might be the simplest solution as she is unconvinced more money for childcare is a government priority in the current climate of cuts.

Families like the Kaurs welcome the extra hours and believe that the government and providers need to find a way to make sure they can continue to offer free places. “Jason loves being around other children,” says Belle Kaur. “The extension to 15 hours gives him that extra time at nursery each day and gives me the break I need.”

PILOT WARNING

How one nursery has seen its costs increase

Ken McArthur, owner of Polly Anna’s Daycare Nursery, has a word of warning to local authorities planning their extended free entitlement. “When calculating budgets they need to look at the parents currently taking less than the 12.5 hours they are entitled to,” says McArthur, whose nursery is located in York, one of the 19 extended entitlement pilot areas. “If they assume they simply increase the budget by 2.5 hours for every child, they are mistaken.”

McArthur says that since parents have been able to use more than 2.5 hours of their free entitlement per day, they have become a lot smarter about how to use it.

Changes to fees needed

“Where a parent used to come in for three five-hour sessions a week, they would get the first 2.5 hours free each morning and pay for the rest,” he says. “Now they get the whole five hours free each day and I have no way of making any extra money.”

This would not be an issue for McArthur if his costs were met by local authority funding. But at present he receives £3.46 per child per hour to deliver free entitlement childcare, despite costs being 28 pence more per hour, per child. “In York the funding has dropped and we fear it will again,” he says. “As part of the pilot we used to get enhanced funding for encouraging flexibility but that has gone.”

McArthur is aware that “top-ups” are still being charged by some pilot providers, despite a government ban, and sympathises. In order for him to stay afloat he admits he may have to look at fee structures, or charge for things the government deems to be “extras”, such as food.

“Over the year 50 per cent of my income is government-funded. When so much comes from one source and you have no control over how much you get, it is a big challenge,” he says.

http://www.cypnow.co.uk/news/1025067/Early-Years-cost-extending-free-childcare/

NZ – New Early Childhood Degree Offered In 14 Regions Across NZ

Early childhood education needs well qualified and well-prepared teachers says Te Tari Puna Ora o Aotearoa / NZ Childcare Association (NZCA) Chief Executive Nancy Bell, as they ready for the launch of their new Bachelor of Teaching (Early Childhood Education) in 14 regions from Kaitaia to Dunedin.

“NZCA has been an established national provider of level 7 teacher education diplomas for many years. However, teachers increasingly see a degree as the entry level to their profession. An early childhood degree brings teachers into line with their primary and secondary counterparts.”

“As well as including the international theory and research underpinning the field, our degree has a unique Aotearoa focus which brings Māori and Pasifika knowledge to the foreground. Students learn while they work in centres, maintaining a strong relationship between theory and practice so our graduates are highly employable” says Nancy. “All of NZCA’s programmes are delivered on day-release schedule, students work four days a week and attend classes on one day with assignments completed outside of class.”

“ECE teachers need a qualification that is research informed if they are to stay up-to-date with the current thinking in early education. Many go on to higher degrees and we need this capability in a sector which currently serves over 180,000 children.”

“We are very proud to be able to offer this qualification in Kaitaia. We want to offer the opportunity for students to study face-to-face just about anywhere in the country. Students are inspired by the commitment of our organisation to high quality ECE and the feeling that together we are making a difference for young children, they find our lecturers passionate and knowledgeable and our classes supportive and welcoming.”

NZCA’s Academic Leader for the new Bachelor of Teaching, Lesley Rameka is very impressed with the qualification, “the degree is an amazing programme that is perfectly suited to New Zealand’s unique cultural landscape.”

Studying at one of NZCA’s 14 regional teaching bases is a great way to get qualified says Nancy, “Our well appointed teaching bases offer intimate class sizes, and a welcoming supportive learning environment. Students can access library and learning resources online 24/7 via our e-learning site.”

“We expect to take around 300 applicants nationwide into the first year with classes starting across the country from February 2011. Competition for places will be high despite the recent ECE funding changes.”

Applications for the Bachelor of Teaching (ECE) open on the 1st September. For more information on applying to study in 2011, call 0800 CHILDCARE or visit www.nzca.ac.nz

http://www.voxy.co.nz/national/new-early-childhood-degree-offered-14-regions-across-nz/5/61060

India – Govt has not done enough for child rights, says NCPCR

According to the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, the state government has not done enough in the areas of food disbursement and right to education for children.

The NCPCR representatives had recently taken a stock of various schemes related to implementation of child rights which involved Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) and implementation of Right to Education (RTE).

“The state government has said that lot has to be done but what they have done is not enough,”said Shantha Sinha, the chairperson of the NCPCR.

The officials of the commission said that 44 per cent of the children in the state are malnourished and asked the state government to take urgent steps . “This is very grave issue as a little less than half of the children in the state are malnourished,” Sinha said.

The commission officials said there exists a lack of coordination between the health department and the social welfare department in implementation of the Integrated Child Development Scheme in the state. Sinha said the commission has learnt that a substantial number of posts in ICDS centers are vacant and at many places workers are handling double charge.

“We will conduct visits at various ICDS centers in the state in November to see what action has the government taken ,” said Shanta Sinha.

On implementation of the Right to Education Act for children from 6-14 years, the commission has urged the state government to come up with model state rules on the issue.

“The Right to Education requires participation of various departments like labour, tribal welfare and police. We have asked the chief secretary of the state to create a platform for departmental co-ordination,” said Kiran Bhatti, National Commissioner (RTE). The commission officials said they would conduct a field visit and a public hearing relating to RTE towards the end of this year.

Although RTE Act came into effect from April 1, the state government has not yet framed state model rules, create an advisory committee for RTE implementation and form commission for protection of child rights, said the commission.

“Being the monitors for implementation of the RTE, we have asked the state government to forward copies of all orders and circulars to us so that time to time we can give report to the Parliament,” said the NCPCR chairperson.

The commission officials have also asked the government to create a list of all children who are out of school and mapping of schools across the state.

“We have expressed our concern over the juveniles homes where we have heard that children are molested and sent to red light areas. The department of social justice and welfare have assured that they would look into such complains,” said a commission official.

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/govt-has-not-done-enough-for-child-rights-says-ncpcr/674827/0