Nearly a year after introducing 20 hours of free early childhood education in New Zealand, the Ministry of Education seems to have become a victim of its own success, with many Otago centres struggling to meet demand for the policy.
The ministry's policy was introduced on July 1, 2007 at teacher-led centres, and was aimed at making education more accessible for children aged 3 and 4.
But many parents are finding centres in Otago have been filled to capacity and their children are being placed on waiting lists.
In reality, parents with children already enrolled in centres are leaving their children there for longer periods, because it is now more affordable.
As a result, centres are filled by fewer children who are there for longer periods, and the waiting lists for children to get into the centres continue to grow.
Several early childhood education centre directors said one of the reasons the system was under pressure was because an expected decline in the number of births in the region had not eventuated.
Government support such as paid parental leave, Working for Families, and Work and Income subsidies for child care had given families the confidence to have children.
Barnardos Early Learning Centre (Oamaru) head teacher Janine Presnall said her centre was filled to capacity with 117 children but parents continued to call about enrolling their children.
She said the centre had a waiting list of up to 40 and most would have to wait up to 12 months
before a place became available.
Mrs Presnall said more early childhood centres needed to be built in Otago to cover the escalating demand. Otherwise, the ministry's aim of making early childhood education more accessible might not come about.
Dunedin Community Childcare Association director Pat Irvine said the escalating waiting lists were cause for concern and believed more research needed to be carried out on the children.
"We can't meet the demand for places in our centres. We've got waiting lists for places in 2010. People are waiting up to 20 months for a place - that's quite a long time. I'm concerned the lists may have large numbers of non-participating children on them who are missing out on
early childhood education.''
Otago University Childcare Association director Kay Lloyd-Jones said the association ran four early childhood centres in Dunedin and had a list of about 80 children under the age of 5 waiting to get into one of the centres next year.
But she warned that waiting lists were not a true reflection, because many families put their children's names on several waiting lists.
Despite the growing list, she was not critical of the 20 hours free policy.
"It's a chicken-and-egg situation. What could the Government do? Build new child-care centres in anticipation that there was going to be more demand from parents? They couldn't have prepared for that, not until they knew how the community would react.''
Ms Lloyd-Jones said the policy was never going to be easy to implement but believed, in the long term, it would be successful.
"Good things take time.''
Central Otago Kindergarten Association manager Angela Jacobson said while space was the issue for many areas in Otago, a lack of qualified teachers was the main issue for Central Otago centres.
"You can add rooms on to a centre to meet demand, but finding qualified teachers . . . is becoming very difficult.
"We have had three vacancies which we have been trying to fill since December last year,'' she said.
A Ministry of Education spokesman agreed demand was very high in Otago. He said 99% of all children in the Otago region participated in some form of early childhood education.
Otago had 81% of centres offering 20 hours free and 85% of 3 and 4-year-olds were in 20 hours-free centres.
Seven centres opened in the past two years in North Dunedin alone, due to the increased demand.
But there was still some capacity in the early childhood education service network - about 17,000 hours - for children to attend, he said.
There was a need for new centres in the region and the ministry had funding options available to set up and support early childhood education services, he said.
Discretionary grants are available for capital funding ($16.239 million) to support community-based services build new, or extend existing, services; Equity Funding ($9.9 million a year) is available for community-based early childhood education services; and Establishment Funding ($1.2 million a year) helps community-based services become licensed more quickly by contributing to staffing and equipment start-up costs for either new or expanding services.
Early childhood education inititives in Otago since 2000 include 19 services which have received discretionary grants totalling $3 million, including 10 planning grants (of between $15,000 and $25,000) to assist groups plan for capital projects; and 12 capital grants for renovation, relocation or expansion of existing services and/or new services.
In total, 290 new licenced child places were created.
