The Press on 20 “free” hours

The Press says in its editorial a point I made a couple of weeks ago. If the Government was only honest about what their scheme does and does not do, they would get far more support for it. Extracts:

The Government has only itself to blame for the confusion and cynicism which have dogged its early childhood education plan for three and four-year-old children. It would have avoided much of the controversy by acknowledging that what it was offering was not free but a subsidy. By not being upfront, the Government has ensured that the blatant politicking which accompanied the scheme’s development continued after its launch this week.

Initially, the Government’s scheme would have applied only to community-owned centres, not to the private-sector operations. But when National proposed a more generous tax-rebate approach, Labour expanded its “free” policy to include all teacher-led early childhood education centres. In doing so, it committed the cardinal political error of raising expectations which could not and would not be fulfilled. That error is responsible for its present political difficulties with the policy.

Describing its policy as “free” defies any normal meaning or use of this word.

The Government’s refusal to waver from its claim of free early childhood education has provided ammunition for its political foes in Parliament and for its industry opponents, such as the Early Childhood Council. This damaging climate of claim and counter-claim helps to explain why the scheme’s take-up rate has not been higher, especially in Auckland, where the lobbying has been intense.

Government ministers, who are currently promoting the policy, would have had a more positive story to tell if they had taken the smart option of describing the scheme as a subsidy from day one. That way parents would focus on the savings they were making on early childhood education, not on the fees and charges still being paid or on the contrast between Government rhetoric and the reality.