Demand for early childhood care consistent across the region
Sunniva Zoete-West is the owner operator of the ?Major Minors? childcare centre in who specialise in care for babies and toddlers under 36 months old. While her centre has the capacity to look after up to 13 infants, she has capped the total number of young clients she will care for at five. ?I would take more on if I could, but there?s a shortage of fully-qualified childcare professionals available to me, which mean if one falls sick I can?t find another to relieve her, so my business suffers. What she means by ?suffers? is this. Without two full time, fully qualified childcare professionals available to work, it puts her business?s eligibility for WINZ funding in jeopardy, as it means her business service is downscaled in its classification. Sunnia says she been there before, and it?s simpler if she reduces the number of children she allows through the door, even though her Ngaio centre can handle twice the number if does. Further north at the Paremata Playcentre, supervised by local parents, they too are experiencing greater demand for their services. Demand for morning childcare sessions has risen, and they?ve added two more sessions to the schedule, and arranged their first afternoon session from 12 noon to 3:30pm. ?In the last 12 months our roll has grown from 20 to 44 families and we now look after more than 70 kids at the centre? explains Fiona Albiston, one of the parents supervising a Wednesday afternoon session. Parent?s supervising the children complete child care training and teach the Te Whaarika curriculum adopted by the New Zealand Playcentre Federation which has an agreement with the Ministry of Education to deliver Te Whaariki professional development programmes at centres until the end of 2009. The Ministry of Education released statistics this year which reveal an increase in the number of centres with waiting lists of longer than six months. Waiting lists for children between six months and three years old increased from 2170 to 2559 (an increased from 11.9 to 28.1 per cent) between 2002 and 2008. Similarly, waiting lists for three to four years olds increased from 2792 to 3162, an increase from 11.2 to 22.7 per cent) between the same period. The Ministry points the finger a parents who ringing numerous childcare centres, placing names on waiting lists around the region, but failing to ask for their name to be removed once a centre is found who can take their child. These statistics however, don?t reflect the situation at the Hutt Play Centre in Days Bays, another parent supervised centre, administered by the New Zealand Playcentre Federation. Mary Longmore is the information officer at Hutt Play Centre which doesn?t have a waiting list. ?We have a capacity of 21 children per session and at the moment we have five spaces available for new children, as some kids have moved on begin school.? Mary Longmore says the Te Whaariki curriculum is delivered to the children by parents who study and gain level qualifications from course one through six Meanwhile, Sunniva Zoete-West from Major Minors believes the 4 years of study plus two years of work to achieve a full childcare qualification, coupled with low pay are barriers to increasing the supply of professionals available to the industry.
