An early childhood educator says pay rises coming for her and her colleagues is "a step in the right direction of victory", but more is still needed.
Education Minister Chris Hipkins yesterday announced that early childhood education teachers will be getting a pay rise this year. It came in a $321 million package for the early learning sector .
The total value of the pay rises will be $151 million over four years, and means that minimum pay for early childhood education teachers will now match that of kindergarten teachers - $49,862 per annum.
Karen O'Leary from Wellington's Adelaide Early Childhood Centre Karen O'Leary helped lead the campaign for the pay rises.
She told TVNZ1's Breakfast today that the Government has a lot of fix or remedy from the previous Government, but that it was good to see the sector being valued.
"The public perception is that the value of ECE is still not where it needs to be, hopefully maybe one of the good things that can come out of this weird Covid-19 situation is that people are really appreciating what early childhood centre's are providing their children.
"I think there's a lot of parents that are like 'wow we wish that centre was open'."
Ms O'Learly, who has a degree in education, says the first 1000 days of a child's life is crucial.
"If you're trying to help someone work out who they are as a person, that's some pretty complex stuff," she said, adding that with better pay, quality applicants who may have ruled early childhood teaching out in the past may now consider it as a career.
Ms O'Leary said the Government has had a lot to fix or remedy from decisions of previous Governments, but that Chris Hipkins and the Labour Party were "doing a good job".
"It's certainly step in right direction of a victory. I think there's still a wee way to go, but certainly I think that what the Government has signalled now is with this initiative is that they appreciate and understand the value of ECE and that's really really good."
When asked about the disparity in pay between educators with the same qualifications, Ms O'Leary said, "it didn't really make a lot of sense to be fair".
"Anyone that's sort of got any understanding of common sense, to have exactly the same job, exactly the same qualification and being paid substantially less money just doesn't make any sense."
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