Strike, fee rise hits kindergartens

Higher fees will stop Robert Sua (right), playing with Sauaga Falesefulu at the kindergarten in Wiri next year. Picture / Greg Bowker

The kindergarten sector is in upheaval, with compulsory fees replacing donations, and teachers today taking their first industrial action in nearly a decade.

The move to a fee-based structure in Franklin and the Central North Island comes 18 months before the Government brings in 20 hours a week of free early childhood education for 3 and 4-year-olds.

It signals the end of a more than century-old tradition of kindergartens as a "social service", says the Central North Island Kindergarten Association general manager Jan Ballantyne.

"It would be great if the Government funded us better, but we have no option if we are to survive."

From next year the Franklin district, which includes most of Manukau City, will charge $3 an hour for six-hour sessions, and in the Central North Island the fees will be $1 for traditional morning or afternoon sessions and $1.35 an hour plus GST for six-hour sessions.

Eftpos machines are being installed in all kindergartens in that association, which stretches from the Coromandel to Turangi.

Some parents at the Manukau Central kindergarten in Wiri, who have been paying "donations" of $10 a week, say they cannot afford the new fees.

Tumua Sua said she would have to pull her 4-year-old son Robert out next year. "I can't afford that."

As a fulltime mother, she is entitled to a subsidy for up to nine hours a week. Robert spends 17 hours in kindergarten at the moment.

Auckland Kindergarten Association general manager Tanya Harvey said some of the changes might be reversed when the Government implemented its new policy from July 2007.

"Some of this is unfortunately a transitional situation," she said. "The traditional sessional service isn't meeting the community need. We are very much affected by the labour market policies and the Government trying to get people back to work."

Enrolments have dropped at all three South Auckland kindergartens that are changing to six-hour "school hours" services because mothers are going to work and need more than three or four hours of childcare.

Franklin Kindergarten Association general manager Debbie Jagiello said Manukau Central was losing money and would have closed if it had not changed to a six-hour centre.

The teachers' dispute centres on term breaks, the amount of non-teaching work time, and margins paid to senior and head teachers.

Two-hour-long stopwork meetings begin today as 1640 teachers decide whether to strike on December 8.

This is the first industrial action since a 1996 strike.

The union's assistant secretary, Peter Monteith, said the employers were demanding changes that would erode the quality of education the teachers provided to 45,000 children.

In another sign of change, the Clydemore kindergarten in Otara will close yesterday and reopen after renovations next August as a fully commercial childcare centre operating from about 7.30am to 6pm, probably charging in the range of other centres of $120 to $185 a week.

* Today's stopwork meetings: Central and North Auckland, Tauranga, Rotorua, Waihi, Te Puke, Wanganui.

* Tomorrow: South and East Auckland, Putaruru and the Whakatane area.