The NSW Minister for Education, Prue Car, refused to commit to supporting higher wages for community preschool educators in today\u2019s Budget Estimates hearing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Instead, Minister Car passed the buck to parent-run community services, claiming that \u201cthe community preschools actually, many of them, I am sorry to admit this, have the capacity to pay their teachers…\u201d, stating that \u201cwe urge them to pay their workers fairly.\u201d
Shadow Minister for Early Education, Felicity Wilson, said the comments from the Minister ignore the Fair Work Commission\u2019s decision, which explicitly stated that \u201coutside of government funding, NSW community preschools can only generate revenue through fees to families.\u201d
\u201cCommunity preschools strive to be affordable for families and are already operating on incredibly tight budgets. Suggesting they simply absorb the cost of higher wages will either lead to higher costs for families or force community preschools to close,\u201d Ms Wilson said.
\u201cEven in the face of the overwhelming findings of the Fair Work Commission that \u201cNSW preschools are reliant on NSW Government funding for the public provision of preschool services\u201d the Minns Labor Government refuse to ensure that community preschool\u2019s in NSW remains affordable for families.\u201d
Minister Car instead verballed the sector, claiming that many of them \u201c…have the capacity to pay their teachers…\u201d, a claim already rejected by evidence to the Fair Work Commission which demonstrated that these reserves (not profits) are required to ensure solvency and are \u201ca one-off pool of resources and are not appropriate sources to fund ongoing wages liabilities into perpetuity.\u201d
The community preschool sector has directly contradicted these claims by Minister Car, with Drummoyne Community Preschool Centre Director Helen Millar saying that \u201cdecisions are being made without our voices being heard and we\u2019re really concerned that funding has been reduced for us because that means the onus has to be put on families to have to pay for that\u201d.
\u201cYes, we want to fight for fair wages, we deserve fair wages, every educator here puts in a lot more hours than what they\u2019re paid for but it’s no good fighting for fair wages if community based preschools are becoming a dying breed – we have to fight for them first,\u201d Ms Millar said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ms Wilson said that the NSW Liberals and Nationals are focused on ensuring that community preschools across NSW receive the support they need to ensure families have access to quality, safe, affordable education that meets their needs.
\u201cWe support giving kids the best start in life. As Liberals and Nationals, we fundamentally support choice, including early education. Community preschools are a vital part of delivering that choice to families.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The NSW Minister for Education, Prue Car, refused to commit to supporting higher wages for community preschool educators in today\u2019s Budget Estimates hearing. Instead, Minister Car passed the buck to parent-run community services, claiming that \u201cthe community preschools actually, many of them, I am sorry to admit this, have the capacity to pay their teachers…\u201d, … Continue reading “Education Minister passes the buck on fair pay for community preschool educators”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nswnews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37887"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37887\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37888,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37887\/revisions\/37888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}