Proposed Licensing Criteria Consultation - Your Last Change Before It Becomes Law.

The Ministry of Education released its new website for the final consultation for the Criteria for Licensing Early Childhood Education Services.

Also services will receive in the mail an outline of the process.

The New Zealand Home-based Early Childhood Education Association will be seeking feed back and discussion from it membership and, will co-ordinating a response on behalf of our membership to the Ministry of Education.

The Executive will be formulating a plan to ensure we capture our membership’s thoughts.

Keep checking the associations website www.nzhomebasedece.org.nz for updates, and the forum’s for online discussions.

Go and check out the new Ministry of Education website at www.lead.ece.govt.nz and see what the proposals are and what the whole jig saw looks like with the:

1. Criteria
2. Draft regulatory standards
3. Guidance information.

Down load the Home-based Criteria at www.lead.ece.govt.nz/HomeBasedECEServices/default.htm.

Looking forward to working with membership to ensure the Proposed Criteria will meet the diversity of the Homebased ECE sector.

Below is some of the key information from the Ministry of educations website www.lead.ece.govt.nz

Evan Kidd.
National President.

Consultation starts now, and continues until 30 November 2007

This is likely to be your last chance to provide feedback before the criteria are finalised and made into law.

Further consultation will only be undertaken if significant changes are made to the requirements as a result of this process.

The purpose of this consultation process is to:

• gain feedback about how achievable services feel the proposed criteria are,
• gather information about any impact the proposed criteria may have on existing services, and
• hear about any alternative options you think need to be considered.

It is very important that we have this information before the licensing criteria are finalised and made into law by the Minister of Education.

The most efficient way of getting this information from the majority of services is through ECE organisations. More than 2000 ECE services are owned/governed by an umbrella organisation or a multiple service provider.

There are also other ECE organisations that, while not having an ownership role, have established lines of communication with their members. Some examples include Early Childhood Council, Te Tari Puna Ora o Aotearoa (NZCA), NZ Home-based Early Childhood Education Association, Montessori Association of NZ, and Christian ECE Association. 41% of the centre-based services that provided feedback in 2006 indicated membership with at least one organisation of this type.

So how can I provide feedback?
If your service is -
a kindergarten, kōhanga reo, playcentre, or any kind of ECE service that is owned by an individual/organisation that has 5 or more ECE services:
Make sure you let your organisation know your thoughts on the proposed criteria and how they would affect your service. They are likely to be in contact with you soon about the best way to do this, and will collate your feedback to provide to the Ministry of Education.
a member of a ‘non-ownership’ ECE organisation (such as NZCA, ECC, MANZ, CECEAA, or NZHBECEA):
Provide this organisation with your thoughts on the proposed criteria and how they would affect your service. They are likely to be in contact with you soon about the best way to do this, and will collate your feedback to provide to the Ministry of Education.

a ‘Stand-alone’ service that is not a member of (or affiliated to) any ECE organisation:

It is important that we hear from you directly. You can download a Word version of a feedback form that you can fill in and submit by post or email. Or, you can submit your feedback online. Links are at the top right hand side of this page.

Playgroups:

Local and regional Ministry of Education offices will be working in a range of ways to support you to provide feedback about the proposed certification criteria. Contact your ECE co-ordinator for more information about what is happening in your area, and how you can be involved.

Otherwise, you can download a Word version of a feedback form that you can fill in and submit by post or email. Or, you can submit your feedback online. Links are at the top right hand side of this page.

If you are an interested individual or organisation (such as a professional development provider, ECE teacher education provider, other government agencies etc):
Please provide us with your thoughts on the proposed criteria and any impact (positive or negative) you think they may have on ECE services and/or your work. Submissions of this kind will be received in any form.