Early Childhood Education centres receive government funding based on the staffing profile, and number and ages of children attending. Photo / Dean Purcell, File
Early Childhood Education centres receive government funding based on the staffing profile, and number and ages of children attending. Photo / Dean Purcell, File
Opinion
OPINION
The UK's largest early childhood education provider, Busy Bees Childcare, has announced its first "acquisition" of 75 centres in New Zealand, from New Zealand-based group Provincial Education.
According to the Australian Financial Review, industry sources suggest Busy Bees (which is majority-owned by Canada's Ontario Teachers Pension Plan) forked outaround NZ$160 million for Provincial.
Busy Bees Childcare will now operate 222 settings across Australia and New Zealand, 417 settings in Europe, 127 in North America and 83 in Asia. Busy Bees is now the third-largest provider of education and care centres in New Zealand.
This acquisition places a sizeable number of New Zealand early childhood education (ECE) centres in the hands of a big international financialised company out to make profits for shareholders and private company owners.
For-profit ECE centres receive the same government funding as non-profit and community-based ECE services.
They receive the government funding subsidy based on the staffing profile, and number and ages of children attending. They are eligible for government grants towards the cost of new buildings and building extensions.
Centres built from these government funds are then owned by the company.
Why taxpayer funding is used to increase the financial assets of private business companies is a question that needs to be asked.
There are no limits on parent fees that can be charged. It's my belief that for-profit ECE is treated as a commodity, subsidised by the government, marketed and sold to families, with financial beneficiaries being those who hold shares in the private equity company.
Moreover, for-profit entrepreneurs may opt to increase their focus on the pay and employment conditions of staff, since these are the biggest cost items in ECE.
In this scenario, financial values may be prioritised over human values and the best interests of the ECE community. In my view, this state of affairs has been legitimised by the market policies of the last three decades.
This practice needs to stop. In 2018, the Government set its terms of reference for the Early Learning Action Plan, where Education Minister Chris Hipkins stated the Government's commitment to "investing in and backing our world-class, public education system for all students. This involves turning the tide away from a privatised, profit-focused education system."
The plan, published in 2021, was meant to inspire change, but did not tackle this crucial ownership issue. However, a way forward is to use the current consultation on the Ministry of Education's proposal for network management of EC services to establish new criteria that privileges public and community-based ECE and ensures the full extent of government funding goes into educating the child and supporting the family.
Linda Mitchell. Photo / Supplied
We can learn a lot from other countries. In Denmark, the current social-democratic government has decided to end funding to for-profit ECE by requiring them to change their for-profit status to "independent" and reach agreements with the municipality in order to receive government funding.
In many European countries, fee-capping is common. In Canada, the federal government has proposed to the provinces that, in exchange for federal funding, the provinces reduce fees in stages to a capped amount, and expand spaces in the non-profit sector.
Controls on fee charging and enrolment policies, scrutiny of full financial statements by government and the ECE service community, and refusal to fund new ECE services owned by publicly listed companies would in my opinion go a long way to deterring private profit-making in New Zealand.
My reimagined vision for ECE is one that takes as its foundational values that children are citizens, and that education is valued as a public good and a child's right.
ECE services are conceptualised as community organisations playing an important role in fostering a democratic and bicultural society.
Aspirations for children to develop as proactive, informed citizens are realised in practice.
In my view, this vision is incompatible with a privatised profit-focused system of education.
• Linda Mitchell is a professor in Early Childhood Education at the University of Waikato.
