Kindergarten teachers play catch up

By DITA DE BONI

It's a crisp Friday morning in Remuera and Julie Killick, head teacher at Constance Colegrove Kindergarten, is wearing a long green velvet dress, a light-green fake alligator skin half-top, and gumboots.

Roughly 45 minutes after we first meet - and one of us has adjusted to the other's foghorn-like guffaw and Lilliputian seating - Killick's Lady Muck'n-boots outfit no longer surprises. She is surrounded by three and four-year-olds wearing all manner of even stranger garb, including tutus, stripy hats and yellow wigs, all high spirits and natural curiosity.

Killick's been there since 7am - her staff of four come slightly later - scrubbing down surfaces, laying out equipment, and arranging each child's portfolio of work and interests in preparation for her 45 morning-session charges who will stomp through as the clock strikes 9.

A casual observer - especially a childless one - might be forgiven for looking on a raucous scene and seeing little in the way of formal learning. There's plenty of dancing, cutting out and pasting, playing in sandpits and running around. It all looks like too much fun. And that impression people have of kindly kindy women buttoning cardigans and wiping runny noses for a living might be why the profession's recent demand to be paid as much as primary and secondary teachers with the same length of training - and agreed to by the Government - provoked many a gobsmacked reaction.

But Killick and her colleagues maintain there is so much more going on than just play at kindergarten. Play is mandated by Te Whariki, the highly respected national curriculum document for early childhood education. Mandatory for all licensed centres but not adopted uniformly, Te Whariki has four key principles (empowerment, holistic development, family and community, and relationships) and five interlinking strands (well-being, belonging, communication, contribution and exploration), all fostered through play.

But it is play that is overseen by teachers with a view to learning what excites the child, and how that play can be the gateway to other types of learning.

Most kindergarten students have a portfolio maintained by the teacher which charts their progress and learning. Killick demonstrates the portfolio of one little boy who is fascinated by fish and shows how he has counted fish, written stories about them, played with them, observed them and drawn them enough to cover all angles of a well-rounded curriculum.

Another little boy is fascinated with vacuum cleaners, his portfolio proudly charting his obsession which, Killick says, is his gateway into enjoyable learning (and perhaps a career as a engineer or household manager?)

Overseeing and encouraging each child's learning programme is the crux of kindergarten teaching. Carol Hartley, head teacher at Mangere Bridge Kindergarten, tells a story of one little girl who expressed an interest in writing to her friend who had just moved to China. She's learning about letter writing, about foreign lands, about what it means for people to move. It may lead the whole class to letter writing in future.

"Child-initiated learning here means we pay interest to each child's individual interests. Properly developed, this can mean building a base for a lifetime of positive learning experiences. It's a lot of work, but it is really so successful at this age, and so important for the rest of the child's education."

Free kindergartens operate differently from playcentres, which are parent-run, and private preschools and other care centres, which are open throughout the day, charge fees and cater mainly to the working parent. Kindergartens run every morning between 9am and noon for four-year olds, taking three-year-olds three afternoons a week between 1pm and 3pm. All permanent teaching positions at kindergartens must be filled by trained teachers, at the minimum a three-year Diploma of Teaching but increasingly a four-year Bachelor's degree. They cannot charge fees but request voluntary donations.

Kindergarten teachers compare their jobs with their primary and secondary colleagues. Most say they leave after 5pm each day, with more hours ploughed into paperwork at home. Fundraising takes up still more time, as do community meetings and parent conferences.

Westmere Kindergarten head teacher Jo Colbert is adamant that the job is easily as demanding as either primary or secondary teaching. "There has been an historic perception of us out in the greater public, that we are not professionals. But this job is incredibly time and relationship intensive, with parents and other stakeholders always keeping a close eye on what we do. It is certainly not an 8 till 4 job any more. And the qualifications we complete are very challenging."

Heather Brooke, head teacher at Clydemore Kindergarten in Otara, runs an "equity" kindergarten. Centres such as Clydemore receive subsidies from their regional association - in Clydemore's case the Auckland Kindergarten Association - because many in its parent community cannot afford the $2 a session it charges.

Unlike Constance Colegrove and Westmere, English is often not the norm among many children who first attend Clydemore. They sometimes lash out at each other in the absence of a common language, situations which require skill to dissolve.

Brooke says the impoverished and transient nature of her community is also challenging. She has to have high energy levels and a good sense of humour, but believes the children and parents are generally "wonderful".

When the issue of pay parity is raised, she smiles blissfully and sinks surprisingly gracefully on to a miniature chair. "At last!"

Trevor Mallard, Minister of Education, may be persona non grata with the secondary teachers' union, but he is almost the patron saint of kindergartens. In November 2000, the Labour Party's Employment Relations Act returned kindergarten teachers to State Sector Act coverage - they've been in and out, depending on who is in power. The move set the scene for the phasing in of pay parity, which was agreed to by the Government and the primary and early childcare union, the NZEI - Te Riu Roa.

Cut to the present, and the country's 1643 kindergarten teachers are voting on, and expected to agree to, pay parity phased in over the next five years, an initiative that will cost our 603 kindergartens an extra $22 million.

Not all of the cost will necessarily lie with the Government. Although kindergartens have always been financed more highly than other parts of the early childhood sector, it is unclear whether, even after an inflation adjustment, the costs to regional associations which run the centres will be fully recovered.

The Government will also boost its funding of non-kindergartens but even so, operators say financing differences between kindergartens and everyone else will be as much as 50 per cent after pay parity is in place.

There is also the possibility - acknowledged by the Government - that with pay parity there will be a mass exodus of trained teachers within the sector into kindergartens, away from variably paying jobs at other centres. A shortage of around 2000 early childhood teachers across the sector will be exacerbated, they say.

Roughly 60 per cent of all preschool children attend regular and casual "education and care" services, most of which are privately owned. Around 20 per cent attend kindergartens, and slightly less, playcentres. Home-based services, correspondence schools, Kohanga Reo Maori immersion schools and Pacific Island language schools claim the rest. But only kindergarten teachers will receive pay parity.

Ross Penman, president of the Early Childhood Council, which represents 800 operators in the privately owned, profit and non-profit preschool sector, says pay parity will ensure any staffing shortage in non-kindergartens is quadrupled.

"The Minister has ripped the heart out of staff morale and broken a 1999 election promise which was to implement better pay to early childhood teachers," he says.

Penman disputes the idea that kindergartens comprise a "state sector", saying that separating them out is an "artificial distinction". He says since the 1980s the sector was all financed on the same basis and the unique status of free kindergartens is a "historical anomaly".

"[Mallard] is suffering from a socialist delusion. Pay parity will be extremely destructive. Basically he's made it impossible to recruit and retain staff for the rest of us because kindies are given the opportunity to cherry pick the best staff. The reality is parents are choosing centres that are not free kindies, because they are working and need the more flexible childcare hours others offer."

Right-leaning political parties have also slammed pay parity. National leader Bill English has called the initiative "foolish", while Act says pay parity for both primary and kindergarten teachers leads to crippling costs.

The idea of granting pay parity to kindergarten teachers has also enraged some secondary teachers, now enmeshed in a heated dispute with the Government to gain a substantial pay increase linked to the introduction of the NCEA. As any across-the-board pay rise granted to secondary teachers is automatically offered to primary teachers, so too will any change in pay immediately trigger an increase to those in kindergartens under the new settlement.

While secondary teachers are reluctant to criticise pay parity on the record, and acknowledge that a four-year teaching degree requires the same of teachers from all sectors - albeit with different emphases - many are astounded that the jobs are considered in any way comparable.

"If they think trying to prepare 150 teenagers for national exams and the workforce is anywhere near 24 hours of kindergarten teaching each week, they have got to be joking," said one Auckland secondary teacher reflecting on the as-yet unsettled 15-month dispute.

Of course, not all educators apart from kindergarten teachers and the Minister of Education are against pay parity. Some, including prominent education commentator and ex-school principal Stuart Middleton, think all teachers from early childhood to tertiary should be on a unified pay scale. There are international precedents for such a system, and as usual, they are Scandinavian.

In Canada, Australia, Britain and parts of the United States, pay parity also exists, although tertiary teachers are generally separated.

However, the world may be moving toward more emphasis on preschool education rather than less, given a recent surge in interest about early brain development. Particular ways of learning have been identified as best for preschool children. Researchers say children must be mentally and physically active in the process of learning, information presented in "integrated wholes" is best, and most importantly for the theories promoted by New Zealand's early childcare advocates, that each child learns in his or her own particular way and time.

But not all children in New Zealand have access - for a variety of reasons - to early childcare education. At age four, for example, 32 per cent of Maori children and 20 per cent of Pacific Island children do not attend any form of early childhood centre.

Early childcare has a higher voluntary component than any other education sector, partly leading to a wide variety in quality of programmes.

Kindergartens in many urban areas are bursting at the seams, with a waiting list in Auckland alone of roughly 8000.

All parts of the sector report chronic underfunding, with reliance on corporate sponsors such as the ASB Bank, the Lotteries Commission and gaming trusts crucial to their survival.

And despite almost universally agreed benefits, the Government, while boosting funding to early childhood education and increasing requirements for fully trained teachers across the sector, has yet to back a compulsory early childcare sector.

If all New Zealand children deserve the best start in life, based on the arguments made by pay parity proponents, then perhaps parity to kindergarten teachers is just the first step.

Amanda Coulston, head of the NZEI, agrees, saying while the union celebrates "history being made for kindergarten teachers" the campaign continues to secure pay parity for all qualified and registered early childhood teachers.

"The campaign for them to obtain pay parity with primary school teachers began more than 27 years ago and was first raised publicly during International Women's Year in 1975.

"Since then many dedicated activists, educationalists, union members and staff, plus a wide range of supporters, have worked to achieve this goal.They have proven that a teacher is a teacher and that they should be given equal value in all sectors.

"If New Zealand is to build an innovative, knowledge and skills-based economy, we need a unified teaching service with high quality teachers from early childhood to adult education."