A thousand teachers working in 150 community-owned, non-profit early childhood education centres won pay parity with primary school teachers last month.
This raises the question, is teaching a 3-year-old as important, as demanding or as complex as teaching a child aged 9 or 17? Should qualified and registered early childhood teachers be paid the same as teachers in primary and secondary schools?
Those who believe that the bigger the child, the more important and demanding it is to teach them, will say no.
They argue that a teacher's job becomes more difficult and the stakes are higher the closer a child is to entering the workforce or moving on to tertiary education.
A wealth of evidence shows that this argument does not stack up. It ignores the fact that the success of a 17-year-old in their NCEA assessments is not based solely on the education they receive in their final year at secondary school. It is determined by the quality of education they have received from their first day at an early childhood education centre, through their primary and secondary schooling.
Parents will understand this. They know how important it is for their child to get a good start in life and work hard to ensure that happens. It is common sense, but it's also backed by scientific research.
Studies show that the most critical period in the brain development of a child occurs in their first six years. Positive stimulation of the brain in these early years lays the foundation for the child's ability to learn, to develop language skills and to interact with others.
American studies have shown that children in quality child development programmes are better prepared for school than children in low-quality programmes, and that children retain these benefits as they mature and reach adulthood.
This is supported by research conducted by the New Zealand Council for Educational Research. Its competent children project is tracking the long-term development of around 500 children.
The study began in 1993 while the children were attending an early childhood education service. It assesses their competence in 10 areas linked with successful learning, such as reading, writing and maths, plus their social skills.
The latest report was issued in August and evaluated the children at age 12. It found that the early childhood education experience of the children in the study continued to make a contribution to their mathematics and reading comprehension scores seven years later.
The project found that quality ratings of centres increased with an increasing proportion of qualified staff and higher salaries paid to staff.
But is teaching at that level as demanding and complex as teaching in a primary or secondary school?
Again, parents will be the first to acknowledge that spending all day with a group of curious, energetic and often noisy under-5s, is challenging.
Early childhood teachers are required to carry out the same work on a professional level as their primary and secondary colleagues.
They are required to follow a national curriculum, they are required to do assessments and, from January 1 next year, all teachers who are running early childhood education centres must be qualified and registered and meet the same professional standards as primary and secondary teachers.
The Government has set a target of having all teachers at teacher-led centres qualified and registered by 2012. New Zealand was the first country to introduce a national early childhood curriculum, called Te Whariki. Each component of Te Whariki is linked to the New Zealand curriculum framework, the policy statement covering teaching, learning, and assessment in primary and secondary schools.
Like their primary and secondary colleagues, early childhood teachers develop individual learning plans for each child in their centre. They set goals based on the learning outcomes in Te Whariki and then assess how the child has performed. The teachers document the child's work so they can map progress and report to parents.
Sounds like primary and secondary teaching? It is.
In an independent comparison of the work of kindergarten and primary teachers in 1999, kindergarten teachers scored slightly higher than basic-scale primary teachers.
The report author concluded: "The roles of kindergarten teachers and basic scale/senior primary teachers are similar in size and there is an area of considerable overlap. There appears to be no justification for the differences in salary."
Since then, kindergarten teachers have gained pay parity with their primary and secondary colleagues. This was won by their union, NZEI Te Riu Roa, which gained parity for primary teachers with secondary teachers in the 1990s, after a job evaluation showed their work was also clearly comparable in size and value.
Now pay parity has been extended to 1000 early childhood teachers working in community-owned centres. Kindergarten teachers are, in effect, state employees.
The union is determined to achieve parity for registered and qualified early childhood teachers and applauds the Government's commitment to provide the funding to deliver this by 2008. This investment in will pay huge dividends for our country.
* Colin Tarr is national president of the primary teachers' union, NZEI Te Riu Roa.
Herald Feature: Education
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<I>Colin Tarr:</I> Pay parity recognition of demands
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