Mel Burgess
Kindergarten & community ECE teacher | Te Whanganui-a-Tara
"I really admire that kindergarten offers quality early childhood education, 100% qualified staff, and that it’s really accessible to low-income families because they can keep the fees down. What creates quality? It’s a whole bunch of factors. It’s the environment, it’s the teachers, it’s the quality of the teaching, and it’s ratios – how many teachers to children you have.
"Quality is also about the relationship that the kaiako have with whānau and tamariki. Every child should feel like their learning agenda is important and that we can help them with that.
"Privatisation means that there isn’t equity in early childhood education or an equitable range of experiences. If you’re doing it for shareholders, of course you’re going to sacrifice quality.
"I would like to see early childhood centrally funded by one organisation and for teachers to all be on a collective agreement, because when conditions are good for teachers, they’re also good for children."