2011 Election Policy

If Lord Google has, for some reason, directed you to this site for the 2011 election, I suggest you head over to this page - interest.co.nz have done a great job at side-by-side policy comparisons for the 2011 election.

More Election Forums

Thanks to one of our readers we have information on three more election forums coming up in the next two weeks. Details are below but if you have any information on election forums please let us know by emailing us.

We also want to run a section called "why I will vote for..." where supporters of particular parties explain their reasons for voting for their particular party. To do this we'd like a wide selection of party supporters - particularly supporters of National, ACT, NZ First, Progressive, United Future or the Maori Party but we'll absolutely take submissions on Labour, the Greens and other parties as well. If you're interested in writing one of these posts we have just three guidelines -

1. Please keep it to the issues, we try and avoid the mudslinging that turns so many people off politics
2. Keep it below 1000 words
3. All facts and policies must be referenced

If you're interested, please email us and let us know. We will run all submissions that comply with the above guidelines.

Oxfam NZ Election Forums Coming Up...

• Tackling Climate Poverty will be on Monday, October the 13th from 6 -7 pm in Auckland. Confirmed speakers are Nick Smith of National, Jeanette Fitzsimons of the Greens, Kath McCabe of ACT and Minister David Parker of Labour. It will be held at the Auckland University of Technology, Wellesley Street East, Lecture room WA 220, WA building.
• Make Trade Fair will be on Tuesday, October the 14th from 5:30– 6:30pm in Wellington. Confirmed speakers are Minister Phil Goff of Labour, Tim Groser of National and Ken Graham of the Greens. The venue is Lecture Room GBLT2, Government Buildings, Pipitea Campus, 15 Lambton Quay, Victoria University.
• Ending Global Poverty and Building a Safer World will be on Tuesday, October 21 from7 - 8pm in Auckland. It will be moderated by Bill Ralston and confirmed speakers are Minister Phil Goff of Labour, Keith Locke for the Greens and Kath McCabe of ACT with a National speaker to be confirmed. The venue is lecture room WA 220, WA building AUT, Wellesley Street East.
  

Thanks to Kay Jones for the heads up. Holly and I are working on posts to go up this week so stay tuned.

Polling Booth

You may have noticed Edulection has been quiet of late - unfortunately life gets in the way and as each post takes a lot of research and therefore time, it's hard to keep up the volume we really need to get enough topics covered.

That's where you come in. Time is running out until the election and there are many, many issues that desperately need covering here. To do this we need your help. A post can realistically be written in 5 or 6 hours - which can be spread over as long as you'd like. If you really want to learn about a particular issue and we don't have it here, consider writing for us. Whenever we write a post we learn so much more than what we post here. We are becoming really quite educated on many topics through doing our research and that means we will be voting in a more educated, balanced way.

Coming up, we can expect Labour to start releasing their policy and as time drags on that's likely to be quite an avalanche. Ideally we'd like to be posting daily in the last couple of weeks which means there is plenty of time for you to write an article. If you're interested please email us and let us know what you'd like to write about.

Coming up this week there is a forum on lesbian affairs being held by the Auckland Lesbian Business Association featuring representatives from Labour, National and the Greens. It's this Wednesday, 8 October at the Purple Bar on the corner of Pitt St and K Rd, Auckland. Doors open at 6 with the forum starting at 6.30pm sharp. For more info check out this page.

There will also be a debate at the Auckland University campus on Monday 13 October starting at 6pm and featuring Judith Tizard of Labour, Nikki Kaye of National, Aaron Galey-Young of United Future, Denise Roche of Greens and Oliver Woods of RAM. For more info check out the event's Facebook page.

Also please don't forget that Wednesday 8 October is the last day you can enrol to vote. If you haven't enrolled (or you're not sure if you are enrolled) just head over to the elections website and get yourself sorted out!

If you know of any upcoming events, please email us and let us know.

You'll notice that our regular EdulectionElection poll is up - once again we invite you to tell us who you plan to vote for. If you're reading this in RSS, please come visit the site and have your say.

With luck we'll have some posts this week. Again, please consider writing a post for us. We know you're probably busy but if you're here you probably care about the issues and there's a chance you care about educating people about them. Everyone has things that are especially important to them that they'd like to let others know about and I'm shamelessly begging for your help.

Finally if you have a question you'd like to put directly to Helen Clark or John Key then the video below explains exactly how you can do that.

Primary Education

Primary school education is the next set of policy to look at in our education series (you can find our first post, on early childhood education here).

In New Zealand, primary school education is compulsory from year 1 (age 5) to year 8 (age 12). For many New Zealanders, the state of the school system is a serious concern. Subjects such as grammar have fallen by the wayside. It is felt by many that, while rote learning of grammar rules isn’t the most interesting thing in the world, it is crucial that our children have that knowledge if they want to be able to string a coherent sentence together later in life. (Kerr, 1999)

This lack of solid grammar rules being taught in schools is not a new one. Emeritus Professor Wallie Clark of the University of Canterbury, in 1994, wrote that grammar has been neglected in our schools for the last 30 years (The Press, 1994, cited in Kerr, 1999). If this is true, then we now have a whole generation, or more, of teachers in our schools who were never taught the rules of grammar themselves.

To bring this back to our politicians, Kerr also quotes two previous New Zealand education ministers.

"Wyatt Creech [of National] told the Post Primary Teachers' Association (PPTA) principals conference in 1996: 'The fact is that New Zealand has a world class education system – other country’s [sic] envy us'. And, almost as if to underline the problems with literacy, Nick Smith [also of National] proudly announced the results of the literacy taskforce earlier this year, emphasising that it was the work of a group 'compromising [sic] mostly principals and teachers'." (Kerr, 1999)

If even our education ministers can’t use proper grammar – or the proper words – then we clearly are in trouble.

As for other subjects, a 1997 IEA (Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement) tested more than half a million children in 26 countries and found that our standard 2 and 3 (year 4 and 5) children were ‘well below’ the average among the countries tested. And it listed our form 1 and 2 (year 7 and 8) children as ‘mediocre at best’ (New Zealand Education Review, 1997). A 2003 IEA study showed that there has been a ‘significant improvement’ in maths and science in New Zealand since 1995.

I should point out that these deficiencies in our education system are not the fault of our teachers. I believe we have a very high standard of teachers in New Zealand and the real problem lies in the curriculum they are being told to teach.

Unfortunately I haven’t been able to find anything more recent than the articles I have referenced above. Well, nothing that isn’t government biased anyway. However, in my research it certainly does seem like our politicians have realised there is a problem. So let’s look at what each party is planning to do for primary school education.

Despite the election date being announced, Labour still don’t have their 2008 policies up. So we’ll look at what they have promised and achieved in the past. (And I’ll update once they announce their policies)

Labour realised prior to the 2005 election that things like in-depth grammar had been missing from our school curriculum for so long that our teachers themselves had missed out on learning it when they were at school. They promised to fix that problem by making it a compulsory part of teacher-training programmes.

They also promised to:

• Create stringent entry and exit criteria for teacher trainees, ensuring that only those with the attributes necessary for teaching can get in to training courses and only those who come out with a high degree of competence in beginning teaching will have their qualification awarded.
• Ensure teacher education is provided by people who are actively involved in research, so graduates emerge with a thorough knowledge and understanding of current pedagogy, curriculum and theories of teaching and learning.
• Focus initial teacher training on subject and year-level areas of greatest need and provide incentives to train in shortage areas, not in areas that are already over supplied.
• Employ around 1,300 extra primary teachers in Year 1 classes over the next three years to ensure that by 2008 there are no more than 15 students in a class.
• Carry out further research on the effect of class size on learning outcomes in other junior school years.
• Continue to implement existing teacher supply and hard-to-staff initiatives such as the Teach NZ scholarships and the Teach NZ promotional campaign, relocation and return-to-teaching grants, and the appointment of recruitment brokers.
• Introduce paid sabbaticals for teachers for full implementation by 2010.

Despite recognising that our future teachers had not received a thorough grounding in grammar themselves, Labour made no promises to re-insert a thorough learning of grammar back into the curriculum.

Their curriculum promises were:

• Extend the highly successful numeracy and literacy initiatives to reinforce the significant gains in the foundation skills of young students.
• Encourage multi-language learning from intermediate school level, to ensure students have more opportunities in an ever more globalised world.
• Explore the possibility of second language learning for primary aged children, including fostering teaching and learning of Pasifika languages.
• Work to encourage thematic learning rather than presenting curriculum barriers that fragment learning.

National want to increase the level of sport and physical activity in schools. They do not want to reduce any other learning to accomodate this increase in PE (physical education) hours required of schools, instead they want to encourage better PE by ensuring all schools have access to high quality sports equipment and encourage students to participate in organised sports outside of school hours. They also want schools’ sports equipment to be available to students during the lunch hour so that children are encouraged to get plenty of exercise at lunchtime.

In terms of the curriculum, National plan to:

• Set national standards in reading, writing and numeracy. The standards will describe all the things children should be able to do by a particular age or year at school. They will be defined by benchmarks in a range of tests.
• Require primary schools to use assessment programmes that compare the progress of their students with other students across the country. Schools will choose from a range of tests, but there won't be national exams.
• Give parents the right to see all assessment information, and to get regular reports about their child's progress towards national standards. Schools will also have to report each year on the whole school's performance against national standards.

This seems to be the extent of Nationals primary school education policy, or at least the extent of the policy they have released so far. However, the plan to set national standards in reading, writing and numeracy shows that they have recognised that there is a problem with our current curriculum and they want to work to address that problem. It will be interesting to see if they go into more detail about what they think the national standards should be.

New Zealand First do not have any specific primary school education policy that I can find. I will update if some becomes available.

The Green Party recognise the importance of Te Reo Maori to the New Zealand culture. They want to increase the number of Te Reo teachers in schools and offer incentives for future Te Reo teachers.

They also want to further improve the ratio of teachers to children in classrooms and support pay parity for early childhood, primary and secondary teachers based on level of responsibility and qualification.

Other Green Party policy for primary schools include:

• Provide adequate staff and resources to Reading Recovery Programmes, Group Special Education and to the Teachers of Learning and Behaviour Programme to address pupil difficulties and underachievement as early as possible and work with families (and any relevant social agencies) to attempt to alleviate the problems.
• Work with schools, parents and communities to identify ways to ensure that no student misses out on education through absenteeism or suspensions, and that absentee learners are promptly contacted and appropriate services are provided.
• Research, develop and increase the number of alternative programmes for absentee and suspended learners, such as the Otago Youth Wellness Trust, In-school Suspension Programmes.
• Ensure learners have the right to not wear a uniform without penalty from the school, and are able to choose their own hairstyle and jewellery, subject to safety requirements.
• Support the retention of rural and small schools and review school transport funding to provide better and safer transport services for rural learners.

The Maori Party want all education to be freely available in both English and Maori and for there to be Maori knowledge programmes available in all schools. They do not want this to be available just for Maori children (as it currently is in many schools), but for all children.

United Future do not agree with National’s plan to standardise testing. They disagree because they feel it would encourage teachers to teach the test rather than teaching everything that a student should learn. They also do not think that the current primary school assessment is in need of an overhaul so see the implementation of standardised testing as unnecessary.

United Future will:

• Support the widespread use of Asttle (Assessment Tools for Teaching and Learning) and ongoing development of tools like Asttle.
• Support the regular use in primary school of diagnostic pre-testing for literacy and numeracy as the basis for teaching, and support this information being made available to parents.
• Increase access to Reading Recovery.
• Set a minimum number of hours are established for the teaching of literacy and numeracy.
• Endorse intentions to drop the teacher/pupil ration for Year 1 Students to 1:15, and recommend that Years 2 and 3 be progressively dropped to 1:22 and Years 4-8 progressively dropped to 1:25.

Act's primary school education policy seems to lie in their scholarships for every child policy.

Under this policy Act plans that schools will treat each student as a customer rather than just a student. This means teachers and principals are more likely to bend over backwards to help a student, because they don’t want to lose that student’s business. With the scholarship policy each student will have a certain amount of money allocated to them each year by the government, whichever school they go to will receive that money. So, a principal will not want a student to leave – because then they will be taking their allocated money with them and giving it to another school.

Act also wants to replace the Ministry of Education with an Education Authority. Beyond likening their proposed Education Authority to the Reserve Bank, they do not explain what it will actually be.

Kerr, Roger. 1999. 'What Parents Should Know About Education'. Educ112 course readings. Victoria University Press.
New Zealand Education Review. 1997. Educ112 course readings. Victoria University Press.

Election Announced!

Helen Clark has finally called the election and the date is November 8.

First of all you should head on over to elections.govt.nz and make sure you're enrolled to vote.

Then you should check out the posts we've already published and get educated on the 2008 New Zealand general election. We've already covered plenty of subjects: Anti-Smacking Bill, Civil Unions, Climate Change, Conservation, Early Childhood Education, Energy, Herceptin, Illegal Drugs, Nuclear-Free Status and Trains and Rail and we have plenty more to come! In the works we have posts on Internet & Technology, Violent Crime, Immigration, Primary Education and Secondary Education.

If you'd like to contribute to the Edulection project you can email us here and let us know what you'd like to write about or, if you just want to keep up to date with what we're reporting on you can subscribe to our RSS.

Finally, if you haven't done so this week, vote in our poll and tell us who you plan to vote for in this year's general election on November 8!

Thanks for reading and don't forget to tell your friends - if you know Kiwi's overseas who don't know who they're voting for this is a great place for them to get up-to-date on the current election issues in a fair and balanced way without having to sort through all the namecalling that goes on in the Beehive these days.

Climate Change

I've been battling with how to tackle this subject for a week or so now - it's so big and it's the kind of thing that divides people. Whoever you are, you're likely to have some sort of an opinion on it. You might believe that climate change is very real or you might believe there's not a word of truth in it. Either way it's worth paying attention to.

If you think it's very real you probably already know and accept that it's going to hit you in your pocket. The upcoming Emissions Trading Scheme is likely to hit every New Zealander via food and amenity prices and the price of fuel. The line the Government is taking (via the Kyoto Protocol) is that we've polluted the planet for too long and it's time to make that harder for people to do. The most effective way to do that is to make things that pollute cost more.

I could go into the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) and what that means the simple fact is it's a huge piece of legislation so I won't. Instead I'll point you to this article which explains what the ETS is and how it works. If you can't be bothered reading through it then what you need to know is that the ETS is a part of our obligation under the Kyoto Protocol, is aimed at reducing carbon emissions (and therefore limiting climate change as much as possible) to 1990 levels by making anything that produces one of 6 main emission gasses (carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs) and sulphur hexafluoride (SF6)) more expensive to produce (and therefore more expensive to buy).

For this post I'm going to look at three things: where each party stands on the ETS currently before parliament, any changes they wish to make to the document and finally if they recognise climate change as a problem at all.

Once again, Labour's lack of current policy stands in our way, however, the ETS is a very current issue and Labour are busy trying to pass legislation before Parliament breaks up for the election. While Labour's Emission Trading Scheme has been criticised by many, it's set to become law. The biggest problems with Labour's ETS is the way it's structured. Currently, transport accounts for 16.4% of emissions while farming and agriculture accounts for 49.4%. But as it stands, transport will be phased into the ETS in 2011 and agriculture in 2013, a move which environmentalists have scorned.

Labour's ETS includes a one-off cash rebate (of about $112) for households facing increases in electricity bills in 2010 and the establishment of an 'energy efficiency' fund from next year to help people insulate their homes.

National want to honour New Zealand's commitment to the Kyoto Protocol, but they have many concerns about Labour's 'hasty' effort to implement an ETS. In particular they highlight;

• That the Government will profit by between $6 billion and $22 billion from the tendering of emissions permits.
• Lack of clear analysis on exactly how much the scheme will reduce emissions.
• Lack or transparency about the real cost of the scheme on households. National believe there are many hidden costs within the scheme that will hit households financially.
• The large number of significant and last-minute changes that neither the select committee nor submitters have been given an opportunity to analyse.

It is important to remember that National's primary goal is to increase wealth within New Zealand. In the Environment Policy launch on Waiheke Island, John Key said -

"I want to be quite open today about the reality that if National leads the next Government we won’t always please every environmental group all the time. That’s because, unashamedly, National will seek to balance environmental goals with our other goals of increasing New Zealand’s economic prosperity and providing more opportunities to Kiwis from all walks of life."

He further believes that good environmental policy and good environmental policy is something that often goes hand-in-hand - something which could be argued against by asking if that were true, would we really be facing the issues we're facing today?

National's promises to make changes to the ETS within 9 months of taking office, aiming for "50 by 50" - 50% reduction in New Zealand’s carbon-equivalent net emissions, as compared to 1990 levels, by 2050. These changes will be "led by" the following principles -

1. The ETS must strike a balance between New Zealand’s environmental and economic interests. It should not attempt to make New Zealand a world leader on climate change.
2. The ETS should be fiscally neutral rather than providing billions of dollars in windfall gains to the government accounts at the expense of businesses and consumers.
3. The ETS should be as closely aligned as possible to the planned Australian Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, with, where possible, common compliance regimes and tradability. National wants to closely co-operate with Australia as we develop our respective schemes.
4. The ETS should encourage the use of technologies that improve efficiency and reduce emissions intensity, rather than encourage an exodus of industries and their skilled staff to other countries.
5. The ETS needs to recognise the importance of small and medium enterprise to New Zealand and not discriminate against them in allocating emission permits.
6. The ETS should have the flexibility to respond to progress in international negotiations rather than setting a rigid schedule. This way, industry obligations can be kept in line with those of foreign competitors.

From the introduction to New Zealand First's Environmental Policy -

"New Zealand First is a party of sensible environmentalists. We have a genuine concern for the environment and its preservation, but we are not captured by the extremist fringe of the environmental movement."

New Zealand First support Labour's ETS and are key players in getting the legislation passed but they are not by any means leaders or environmentalists. They will only go ahead with implementing Kyoto standards if they are "in harmony with [the goals] of our major trading partners". In this area it's worth keeping in mind that New Zealand First are huge supporters of the US-New Zealand trade agreement and the US are the only country that has not signed the Kyoto Protocol.

As you may imagine the Green Party have strong views on Climate Change and are one of the only parties to have a dedicated policy document on the issue. The Greens have spent considerable effort negotiating with Labour on the ETS and only decided to support the policy after public consultation (you can check out the YouTube video of their press conferences on the issue here and here (for before their decision) and here and here and here (for the announcement of their decision))

Essentially the Greens would like to see us move forward and reduce our carbon levels and expose the New Zealand economy to the world price for carbon. For everyday New Zealanders that means that things are going to become more expensive. It's worth remembering however that, as National pointed out, a lot of money will be generated for the government through this scheme and the Greens plan to invest that money in creating new industries for the West Coast of the South Island (who are currently quite dependant on the coal industry), helping low-income households cope with the raised costs of living, funding energy efficiency (insulation) in homes, renewable energy and transport programmes and partially shielding important but vulnerable industries from the full force of the cost of the scheme.

The Greens are particularly aware of the emissions produced by the agriculture sector but show that the beef and lamb sectors have not increased their carbon production past 1990 levels. The Greens do not want to punish individual farmers either, more they would push the cost onto processing companies such as Fonterra. It's worth remembering however that this will only result in an even higher cost of dairy at the supermarket.

Undoubtably, the Maori Party believe in climate change, so much so that the will not support the ETS. Tariana Turia explains this stand by saying:

"We remain strong in our belief that, fundamentally, the ETS is still just an Emissions Trading Scheme, when what is required is an Emissions Reduction Programme [...] A 2% reduction in emissions over ten years is simply fiddling while Rome burns. The time for scheming is over. Now is the time for a programme of action, [...] A real Emissions Reduction Programme will require significant changes in our lifestyle, but the alternative, of doing almost nothing, will be a lot worse."

The Maori Party are also strongly against the staggering that Labour have given to the transport and agriculture industries calling it "pay the polluters" and pointing out that it should be "polluter pays".

In a nutshell United Future accept that climate change is happening and believe something needs to be done about it. Like the Greens, United Future have a dedicated climate change policy which explains their stand and their goals. As briefly as possible, they would like to balance environmental and economic effects, promote both public and private initiatives (such as working with the banks to finance home insulation and retro-fitting), encourage the disposal of old, inefficient cars and encourage biofuel use.

Two unique and innovative parts of United Future's policy are outlined below -

• Require all flats and rental properties to be advertised as to whether or not they are insulated. in order to help tenants make an informed choice and will incentivise landlords to improve the insulation and energy efficiency of their properties. Anyone who's been stuck in a dank, dark flat in Winter (especially if it was awesome when they moved in during the warmer months) might agree that this could be an fantastic little piece of legislation.
• Require all new Government vehicle fleet purchases be hybrid vehicles where possible.

United Future do not want to cause extra costs to be put onto the agricultural sector, more they want to encourage research and development by both the Government and Fonterra aiming to reduce methane emissions from the industry. For those costs the farmers must bear, United Future supports a scheme whereby the cost of carbon can be offset by planting trees on the farm (particularly around waterways) instead.

Act are the only party that outright do not believe in climate change. Rodney Hide has been quoted as saying -

"The data and the hypothesis do not hold together. Al Gore is a phoney and a fraud on this issue and the emissions trading scheme is a worldwide scam and a swindle."

Policy 18 (of 20) on climate change states:

"There’s no doubt the climate is changing. Indeed, it’s been changing for millennia. What’s in doubt is the anthropogenic effect. That is, the level that humans contribute to this change in climate through emissions of carbon, etc."

The only things Act plan to do in the climate change arena are "adopt saner policies", although what these are exactly is unknown. They also state that a lower carbon tax is better than carbon trading.

If you wish to understand more about the effects and issues around the ETS I'd recommend you take a look at some of these articles:

• Kyoto power costs pass to consumers
• Large industries cry foul over emissions trading scheme
• Scheme will hit everyone's pocket
• Urgent call for Rudd and Clarke on climate change action

Early Childhood Education

Education is always a topical election issue. Tertiary policy in particular is a big one, because people starting tertiary education are also starting to vote – and student voters are highly prized by most political parties. However, there is a lot more to education policy than just student allowances, student loans and free education for the masses. Education is too big a topic to cover all in one go, so we are going to look at the various areas of education over the next few weeks, starting with early childhood education and working our way up.

So, to begin, early childhood education.

In New Zealand early childhood education (younger than 5 years old) is not compulsory. Parents can choose to send their children to an early childhood education centre, or they can choose not to. Some primary schools require an early childhood education before they allow entrance into their own school, but most do not have this requirement.

Labour do not have their 2008 policies up on their website yet. In prior policy they have placed a huge amount of importance on education, including early childhood education, so it is a fair assumption that they will again.

One of their biggest early childhood achievements of the last term has been implementing the 20 Hours Free scheme. This scheme gives 20 hours of free teacher-led early childhood education to all qualifying children, per week. It seems relatively easy for a child to qualify – they just have to be between the ages of 3 and 4 years old and attending a teacher-led early childhood education centre. It is worth mentioning that parents may still be asked to make voluntary donations to the early childhood education centre. The donations are strictly voluntary – the centre cannot demand extra payment (although I’m sure some put a huge amount of pressure on).

Here is what Labour have achieved so far for early childhood education (taken from their website). It basically breaks down to:

• Increased government funding for early childhood education by 140% since 1999.
• Set the requirement for all early childhood education centres that offer teacher-led services to have at least one qualified teacher on staff.
• Provided grants to encourage more people to train as early childhood educators.
• Identified the areas around the country where more early childhood education centres are needed.
• Created the 20 Hours Free scheme.

I will update with Labour’s 2008 policy once it is announced.

National care about education, including early childhood education, and have made it a big priority in their 2008 policy. They want to retain everything Labour have put in place over the last few years, and to build on and improve that foundation.

A National-led Government will (from their website):

• Improve the choice and quality of early childhood education (although they don’t mention how they are going to do this)
• Retain Labour’s 20 Hours Free scheme
• Make the 20 Hours Free scheme more flexible and improve its availability by including playcentres and kohanga reo as eligible early education centres, removing the 6-hours a day limit and including 5 year olds as eligible
• Maintain all other current early childhood subsidies and fee controls
• Increase the adult/child ratio in early childhood education centres from 1:5 to 1:4
• By 2012 they will require that at least 50% of teachers in each teacher-led early childhood education centres for children under 2 years old, are qualified teachers
• Allow English-speaking foreign teachers to become qualified in New Zealand after completing a 6-week course
• Allow Montessori, Steiner and Playcentre qualifications count towards the early childhood education degree

Like National and Labour, New Zealand First consider early childhood education to be very important. They have thrown a lot of acronyms around, but don’t explain exactly what the services these acronyms stand for will be. (My favourite is HIPPY – it’s about homeschooling children - which makes me wonder, are New Zealand First trying to tell us something, or is it just a coincidence?)

Their early childhood education policies are (straight from their website):

• initiate Family Start Programmes across the country aimed at those children at greatest risk of less than optimal development
• make available "Home Instructional Programme for Pre-schoolers and Youngsters" (HIPPY) programmes to all families with low levels of educational capital
• develop Parents as First Teacher (PAFT) programmes across the country
• extend the 0800 advice line services
• combine all parent-caregiver support programmes under the umbrella of a single agency
• increase the discretionary grants available to communities for building or upgrading early childhood facilities in order to increase participation rates
• explore the possibilities of enabling early childhood centres to be funded more than six hours per day and for weekend sessions
• develop a set of principles defining which languages will be supported and to what degree

While they don’t mention Labour’s 20 Hours Free scheme directly, they do say that they want to look at the idea of more than six hours per day of funding per child which I assume means improving on the current scheme, which provides 6 free hours per day. They leave themselves a nice get-out-of-jail-free card by saying ‘explore the possibility’.

I really like that New Zealand First are promising to increase the discretionary grants for building and upgrading early childhood facilities. There are some communities that would really benefit from that increased funding.

The Greens consider education a top priority. Unfortunately they seem to be so focussed on tertiary education that they don’t have very many policies on anything before that.

They do want to improve resources for not-for-profit early childhood centres. And they want pay-parity for early childhood teachers, primary teachers and secondary teachers.

Other than that nothing is mentioned.

The Maori party have no mention of early childhood education in their policy. I will update this when I find out more.

United Future heavily emphasises parental involvement in a child's early childhood education. They want to encourage parent-led centres and to include these in the 20-hours free scheme. United Future agree with the other major Parties that New Zealand needs more qualified early childhood teachers, but they do not agree with the proposed requirement that all adults in teacher-led centres be qualified early childhood teachers. They prefer the idea that support staff, not actively involved in teaching, do not have to be qualified teachers.

United Future are the only party to propose an increase in funding to identify children with special needs at this level. Currently learning disabilities are not generally recognised in children until they fail to keep up with their peers later on. If these needs were recognised in more children sooner they would be able to get the help they need before entering the primary school system.

Act don’t have anything about early childhood education in their policy. Looking through some old press releases and reports from them, they were in favour of the 20 Hours Free scheme. They also want to implement scholarships for every child, so that they can go to whatever school they want – regardless of cost. I’m a bit confused as to what exactly they mean by this. If they are providing this for every child, the essentially they are actually just fully-funding education in New Zealand. I’m not sure why they call it a scholarship. Anyway, I assume they include early childhood education in this – although it doesn’t specifically say.