Pre-school draft nears completion

Press, 4 April 1989, Page 5

Pre-school draft nears completion

PA Wellington Working groups writing the detail of the Government’s early childhood care and education reform will finish their task on April 11. The reform, “Before Five,” follows a similar theme to changes in primary and secondary schools.

Unlike schools, preschool institutions will not be run by boards of trustees, but will keep the same management structures.

Each early childhood service receiving State funding will be required to write a charter in consultation with parents and the community, and will receive a bulk grant.

The working groups have been consulting with many pre-school services and developing national guidelines, looking at special education issues, the details of bulk grants, developing ways to align pay and conditions of employment of pre-school staff and other staffing

issues, and property issues such as assistance to services with incomplete premises or sites.

The Government has yet to decide how much funding will be given to the pre-school sector which gets only 1.8 per cent of the education vote yet runs services for almost as many children as secondary schools.

-The Minister of Education, Mr Lange, has said more should be spent. Funding decisions will be made in the Budget and a group has been formed to lobby the Government to make pre-school funding a high priority. The Education Department says research has shown money invested in the early childhood sector may result in a seven-fold return by the time children who have benefited from the services reach adulthood.

Pay-off comes in savings in welfare, unemployment and prevention of social disadvantage, the department says.