The National Party would "closely monitor" early childhood education services fees to ensure they are fair, if elected to Government, it says.
It follows the party's 'Family Boost' policy launch yesterday, which would give low-and-middle-income families a 25% rebate on their childcare expenses.
National early childhood education spokeswoman Penny Simmonds told 1News on Monday the party would remove a Government policy that "restricts the opening of new centres" and would "closely monitor services fees to ensure they are fair".
That Government policy was network management for licensed early childhood services, which was introduced on February 1 this year.
It meant unless excluded, anyone intending to establish a new licensed early childhood service would first need to apply for and be granted network approval by the Minister of Education.
According to the Ministry of Education website, the policy was driven by the Government's 2019-2029 Early Learning Action Plan, which aimed for early learning services to be "part of a planned, diverse and coherent education ecosystem that is sustainable and meets the needs of communities across New Zealand".
Simmonds said the National Party had "identified a number of issues in early childhood education" which it would address in its full early childhood education policy to be released later this year.
“We will help address widespread challenges finding educators, ensure regulation is focused on quality not box-ticking and improve enforcement of existing quality requirements.”
Earlier today National leader Christopher Luxon was asked about whether affordability in the early childhood education sector was a big issue.
He said there were "some structural challenges" in the sector.
"We’ll have more to say about that in the future."
Asked what he meant by that by 1News, Simmonds released her statement.
No vision
Earlier, the Child Poverty Action Group launched a scathing assessment of the Family Boost policy, saying it failed to address a "core problem" in the sector that "profit is a driving force for many centres".
The organisation released a statement warning the policy didn’t have the "vision needed to overhaul a dysfunctional system".
The group's education spokesperson Associate Professor Dr Jenny Ritchie said policy would allow big business to continue profiting while receiving government funding.
Te Rito Maioha Early Childhood NZ chief executive Kathy Wolfe said the recognition by the National Party that early childhood education costs were a fundamental issue for young families was welcome, but the funding and provision model couldn’t be "fixed with a band aid".
"The statistics don’t lie. Despite the 20 and then 30 hours early childhood subsidy, some for-profit-providers raised fees and created conditions that swallowed the subsidy, leaving early childhood education in New Zealand one of the least affordable in the OECD.”
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