My name is Catherine Hawes and
I am in my third year of study at the Eastern Institute of Technology in
Taradale, Hawkes Bay. This blog is for one of my third year assignments and
comments and feedback will be gratefully received.
Teacher to child ratios in
early childhood centres play an important role in the quality of care available
for very young children throughout New Zealand. The ratios are bound by
government regulations and dictate how many teachers (adults) must be physically
on the floor working with the children at any given time. Currently the legal
requirement for how many adults must be engaged with children’s care and
learning for children under two, sessional or all day centres are one
adult for every five children. Children in over two care, sessional or
all-day centres are one adult for every six children (My ECE Website, 2015:
Parliamentary Council Office, 2013).
I chose this topic because I
feel that teachers are being put under more and more stress to cope with larger
numbers of infants, toddlers and young children in early childhood settings. I feel that
the 'care' becomes the primary function and outweighs the teaching opportunities.
I wonder if the ratios were lower would teachers have time to engage in
meaningful teaching and learning experiences with children.
I am interested in learning
more about how the teacher to child ratios impact, positively and/or
negatively, on teacher’s abilities to provide a good level of care, an
experience rich curriculum, and a low stress environment for infants and
toddlers.
Some parents are choosing to
or needing to go back to work after their babies born. Many of which do not
have the luxury of having families that can look after the children. Parents
are having to looking to institutional care to meet their needs. So the real political
issue is; should very young children be engaged in group care and education, is
it in the best interests of infants and toddlers or would very young children
benefit from being at home with a primary caregiver instead. If infants and toddlers must
be in institutional care then what optimizes the quality of care for them?
References
Parliamentary Council Office. (2013). Education Early Childhood Services Regulations 2008. Retrieved from
My ECE Website. (2015) Adult child ratios:
Minimum number of adults to children permitted. Retrieved from
http://www.myece.org.nz/centre-mininum-legal-requirements/129-minimum-adult-child-ratios