By Ingrid Hipkiss
Hundreds of parents and teachers took to the streets of Auckland today, protesting changes to early childhood education funding.
The Government has slashed financial incentives for preschools and kindergartens to employ qualified teachers, and parents say their kids are getting a raw deal.
The funding shake up happened back in February but that did not deter today's march.
Those cuts saw around 2000 preschools and kindergartens lose funding to pay for qualified teachers.
The Government says only eight out of 10 preschool teachers need a qualification, so it pulled subsidies for more.
Preschool teacher Florrin Keni says the move is a mistake.
“For us to implement quality programs or learning experiences for our children we need to know what we're talking about. We need to know what we're doing.”
Education Minister Anne Tolley says the Government has actually increased funding to the sector by $550 million over the next four years.
“In fact we're spending as much on early childhood services now as we are on the entire police force, so it's an enormous amount of money.”
Opposition leader Phil Goff was presented with a petition echoing those concerns, and signed by 60,000 people.
“Nobody would imagine that it’s satisfactory to have 20 percent of our primary teachers unqualified, what changes magically at age five?”
Mother Tuafono Teio says “it means a lot for our children to have the best of the best at the start”.
“And that's exactly what I’m here for.”
The numbers today were swelled by plenty of politicians; it is an election year after all - no one from the Government though. It’s heard these arguments before and the minister said it will not be swayed.
3 News