ECE Update
Welcome to this issue of the early childhood education Update
Education (early childhood services) Regulations 2008
The Education (Early Childhood Services) Regulations 2008 were amended on 27 August 2009 and will come into force on 25 September 2009.
Changes to licensing criteria for centre-based, home-based and hospital-based services came into effect on 28 August 2009.
Services that were already licensed and chartered before 1 December 2008 will continue to comply with existing requirements until the service is visited by the Ministry of Education and assessed against the 2008 regulations. This will happen during the five year re-licensing period.
The Ministry of Education will begin re-licensing services under the 2008 regulations from September 2009. Re-licensing processes will be managed by Ministry of Education’s regional and local offices. For more information on re-licensing your service contact your nearest Ministry of Education office.
Fact Sheets that provide background on the 2008 regulations and changes from the 1998 regulations for each early childhood education service type, as well as re-licensing and certification processes, can be found on the Ministry of Education’s lead website www.lead.ece.govt.nz.
Frequently asked questions about changes to the 2008 regulations, along with full licensing criteria, information on the review and amendments that were made to licensing criteria in July 2009, are also available on the Ministry of Education’s lead website www.lead.ece.govt.nz.
Hard copies of the current regulations are available from Bennetts or Whitcoulls.
CHANGES TO THE DISCRETIONARY GRANTS SCHEME
The Ministry of Education is looking at more effective options for increasing participation in high quality early childhood education. Until this process is complete the Ministry will not be accepting new Discretionary Grants Scheme (DGS) applications.
DGS funding will continue to be used to support participation in high need areas. Groups that are planning new facilities should continue to liaise with the Network Co-ordinator at their local Ministry office - this information will be useful in any revised scheme.
Existing planning grants will be considered for funding within a new programme for raising participation in early 2010.
MEASLES UPDATE FROM THE MINISTRY OF HEALTH
The number of reported measles cases has continued to rise. There have been more than 100 cases in Canterbury and the number of cases in Auckland is growing. There have also been isolated cases in other regions.
There is concern that immunisation rates are not high enough to stop the spread of measles and doctors have begun recalling unimmunised patients to increase immunisation coverage.
The measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine is free and very effective if children get immunised on time at 15 months and four years of age. Once fully immunised, 90 to 95 per cent of children are protected from measles.
INFORMATION FOR EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION SERVICES
When the local public health service receives notification of a measles case, its staff will contact any affected early childhood education service and provide information and advice to the manager.
Under the Health (Infectious and Notifiable Diseases) Regulations 1966 (Section 14), a child or teacher with measles must stay away from the early childhood education service for seven days from when the rash appears.
Unimmunised children, or those with no immunity to measles, who have been in close contact with a measles case during the infectious stages will be excluded from an early childhood education service for 14 days from their last contact..
Early childhood education services can help stop the spread of measles by:
- informing staff about the measles outbreaks. This includes letting staff know that measles is a serious and notifiable disease
- updating immunisation registers for all children enrolled. These must be maintained under the Health (Immunisation) Regulations 1995. Having this information readily available means that children that are unimmunised and have been close contact with someone that is infected can be quickly identified and isolated. This reduces the risk of further spread
- sending a newsletter to parents, caregivers and whānau asking them to check that immunisations are up-to-date. If there is an outbreak of measles, the Ministry of Health will require children, who are either unimmunised or have had no previous exposure to the disease, to be excluded from the service to protect them from infection.
You can also call the Immunisation Advisory Centre on 0800IMMUNE (0800 466 863) or go to www.immune.org.nz
NEW CLAUSES IN THE ECE FUNDING HANDBOOK
New clauses about the recovery of early childhood education funding have been added to the Early Childhood Education Funding Handbook. The following is a copy for your information.
RECOVERY OF EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION FUNDING
Introduction
Section 311 of the Education Act 1989 provides for the payment of funding to eligible early childhood services1 subject to conditions so that they may provide early childhood education. Services which fail to meet these conditions may no longer be eligible for funding and either all or part of this funding may be recovered by the Ministry of Education.
This section sets out the circumstances where the Ministry may recover funding from services or service provider(s).
The following funding conditions apply to the recovery of funding from 1 October 2009.
Recovery of Funding
If the results of a funding claim audit and/or reporting on RS7 Funding Claim and/or RS3 Initial Application for Funding for an Early Childhood Service forms indicate that the amount of funding provided is greater then it should have been, the amount of the over funding will be:
(i) repayable by the service to the Ministry of Education on request ; and
(ii) treated as a debt which the Ministry can offset against all or any funding sums payable by the Ministry to the service provider.
When a service has received less funding than it is eligible for, the amount of any underpayments will be credited to the bank account nominated by the service provider as soon as is reasonably possible. However, the Ministry may choose to verify whether services are eligible for any underpayments of funding before these are made, for example by way of a funding claim audit.
Offsetting funding recoveries
The Ministry may offset against all or any funding or other sums of money payable by the Ministry to the service provider, any debt or other sum payable to the Ministry by that Service Provider.
In these cases, the debt or liability will have been outstanding to the Ministry for a period of 30 days or more.
Funding may be withheld in part or in full
The Ministry may, subject to any conditions and for any period, determine that no funding is payable either in full or in part for any service(s) where:
a) the service’s licence has been suspended and for the period of that suspension; or
b) the service’s licence has been cancelled or revoked; or
c) the service provider has not met any of the conditions set out in the Early Childhood Education Funding Handbook or in any other documentation which was the basis for receiving funding. This includes the failure by the service(s) to maintain accurate records to the standard required by the Ministry;
d) the service has not met the financial reporting requirements for early childhood education services that are outlined in Chapter 12 of the Early Childhood Education Funding Handbook ; or
e) the service has not returned its completed RS61 Annual Statistics Form to the Ministry by the due date, or its RS61 is not correctly completed. This form gives the Ministry of Education a ‘snapshot’ of the number of enrolled children, as well as the number of staff for early childhood services and is used in the development of policy, monitoring and funding; or
f) the service provider is in debt to the Ministry which the service provider is unable or unwilling to repay the Ministry either immediately or within the timeframe prescribed by the Ministry; or
g) the Ministry is satisfied on reasonable grounds that the service provider’s financial viability is at risk (for example if there is a substantial debt owed to the Ministry, Inland Revenue, or some other person or agency) or there has been a change in some other circumstances that may affect its ongoing ability to provide the services required; or
h) the service or the service provider is the subject of an investigation for fraud or financial mismanagement, the funding may be withheld for the period of that investigation pending its outcome. If the investigation finds there is fraud or financial mismanagement, the funding arrangement for that service(s) will be reviewed to determine, at the sole discretion of the Ministry, the service or service providers continuing eligibility to funding; or
i) the service or the service provider is in receivership or liquidation.
For the avoidance of doubt, nothing in the paragraphs above prevent the Ministry from decreasing the amount of the grant paid in advance to a service where the Ministry has reasonable grounds to believe that the matters set out in paragraphs c), f), g), h) or i) above may apply.
For more information about the recovery of early childhood education funding clauses call the Resourcing Contact Centre on 04 463 8383 or email www.resourcing@minedu.govt.nz.
1 Eligible services are services that are either deemed to hold a licence under section 319K or section 319L of the Education Act 1989 and to which section 319M of the Act applies or services that hold a licence under the Education (Early Childhood Services) Regulations 2008.
INFLUENZA A (H1N1) SWINE FLU
The Ministry of Health continues to monitor the spread of Influenza A (H1N1) Swine Flu in New Zealand.
For general information on Influenza A (H1N1) Swine Flu go to the Ministry of Health’s website at www.moh.govt.nz
or call Healthline on 0800 611 116.
NEXT ISSUE OF UPDATE
The next early childhood education Update will appear in Volume 88 Issue 19, which is available from Monday 26 October 2009.
If your service does not currently receive the Education Gazette you can subscribe by going to www.edgazette.govt.nz.
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ORDERING RESOURCES AND PUBLICATIONS
To order early childhood education resources and publications contact Wickliffe.
Wickliffe provides customer services for the Ministry of Education publications. If you need to order anything phone 0800 660 662, fax 0800 660 663 or email orders@thechair.minedu.govt.nz
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