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Children's rights and early childhoodpolicy: A New Zealand storySarah Te One aa Institute for Early Childhood Studies , Victoria University ofWellingtonPublished online: 15 Jun 2007.

To cite this article: Sarah Te One (2005) Children's rights and early childhood policy: A NewZealand story, European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 13:2, 25-39, DOI:10.1080/13502930585209651

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European Early Ch i ldhood Educat ion Research Journa l

Vol. 13, No. 2 2005

25

Children's Rights and Early Childhood Policy: A New Zealand Story

SARAH TE ONE

Institute for Early Childhood Studies Victoria University of Wellington

SUMMARY." This paper begins with a brief historical overview of children's rights" in Aotearoa New Zealand and then examines some of the key early childhood education documents since the 1984 Labour Government~' reform agenda, the great experiment (Kelsey, 1995), which not only changed the language of education but also revolutionized the sector administratively. An impor- tant and recurrent theme is' an enduring obsession with children in the future, which is common to all the policies and documents reviewed.

RESUME: AprOs un bre)C aperqu historique des droits de l 'enJimt en Nouvelle-ZOlande, cet article analyse quelques uns des principaux textes relatifs gl l '~ducation de la petite enfance, produits clans le cadre du programme de r~Jbrmes du gouvernement travailliste depuis 1984, la grande experimentation (Kels'ey, 1995), quin 'a pas seulement ehang~ le langage de l 'Oducation mais a Ogalement rdvolutionnO les aspects' administratifs du secteur. Un thOme important appara# de manibre rgcurrente et quasi obsess'ionnelle h travers routes les politiques et textes examines :les en/i~nts clans l 'avenir.

ZUSAMMENFASSUNG: Ausgehend yon einem kurzen geschichtliehen Abriss der Kinderrechte in Neuseeland (Aotearoa) werden einige wichtige Dokumente zur FriihpOdagogik seit der Rc,]brm der Labour-Regierung im Jahr 1984 untersucht. Dieses groJ3e Experiment (Kelsey, 1995) brachte nicht nur eine neue Sprache der Bildung mit sich, sondern revolutionierte at~erdem die gesamte Vel~,altung des Sektors. Ein wichtiges und immer wieder kehrendes Thema ist eine anhaltende leidenschafiliche Bcff21ssung mit Kindern in der Zukunft, die in allen untersuchten Grunds'dtzen und Dokumenten zu finden ist.

RESUMEN: Este articulo comienza con una breve visi6n global hist6riea de los derechos de los ni~os en Nueva Zelanda y contimia con el examen de algunos de los documentos clave sobre la ensehanza en la primera infancia, a partir de, la rc~)twTa del gobierno laboris'ta de 1984. Esta no solo cambi6 el lenguaje de la ense~anza sino que tambidn revolucion6 al sector desde un punto de vista administrativo. Un tema que es importante y recurrente es la continuada obsesi6n con los nii~os en el futuro, algo comtin en todas las polRicas y documentos estudiados.

Keywords: Children's rights; New Zealand policy; Early childhood education.

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Introduct ion

Discourses about children's rights are complex. Exactly what role or status children have in our society is ambiguous (Smith, 2000) because "it is hard to peer through the tangle of adults them- selves" (Mayall, 2000 p. 127). As Berry Mayall argues, children are part of the social order, and "proper understanding of the social order requires consideration of all its members" (2000, p. 127).

This paper presents a brief historical context for children's rights in Aotearoa New Zea- land and then examines some of the key early childhood education documents since the 1984 centre left Labour Government's reform agenda, 'the great experiment' (Kelsey, 1995). This not only changed the language of education but also revolutionized the sector administratively. An important and recurrent theme is an enduring obsession with children in the future, which is common to all the policies and documents reviewed.

Critical analysis of the policies is important to challenge "the dominant, discursive re- gimes" (Dahlberg, 2000. p. 14) in which needs and rights remain intertwined, both in theory and in practice. To work through these discourses, to examine how "they exercise power over our thinking and our acting as well as how we govern ourselves through these discourses" (Dahlberg, 2000, p. 14), requires open discussion and debate. This is not easy and there is a lack of critical discourse about the actual impacts of policies perceived as beneficial and supportive of children's rights. However, a critical discourse can reveal not just the strengths but also the weaknesses, and it is in this context that this analysis of the policies is made.

B a c k in t ime - ear ly d i s c o u r s e s about ch i ldren

Reinforcing the fact that childhood is a complex political issue Helen May's historical analysis of children's citizenship rights noted:

State interest in the survival, care and education of very young children had its roots in the age of enlightenment in eighteenth century Europe. Thereafter, the Western state become an increasingly active partner in rearing children, but cloaked its gaze in precise ways that were politically acceptable at the time. Early interest began with improving the survival chances of infants then including - the inculcation of moral habits and order amongst the poor; a realisation of the possibilities of investing in the physical health of children and then their psychological well being. Later, support for early childhood services was justi- fied an issue of various kinds of equity issues for children, women and minority groups and most recently as a prudent economic investment (May, 2004, EECERA conference presentation).

McDonald (1978, 1980) provided a useful framework fbr positioning discourses about children. Starting from the early colonial view, he identified several distinctive phases of childhood, which inform our understanding of the European child in Aotearoa New Zealand. The phases he identi- fied were: the child as a chattel in the 1800s; the child as social capital during the 1900s; the child as a psychological being in 1940s -70s; and the child as a citizen in 1970s. At the same time as defining these distinctions he added, "(t)here is a sense in which one can see children's rights as a battleground for wider moral and political issues" (McDonald, 1980, p. 25), particularly when it comes to who is responsible for ensuring that the rights of the child are met: the state or the immediate family but it is the degree of responsibility allocated to each party that shifts accord- ing to wider political, social, economic and cultural influences, a point noted by May (2001), especially when it comes to the provision of early education.

Brian Easton (1980) created different frameworks from which to consider the status of children and children's rights. The three frames of reference Easton used were: (i) children as chattels and therefore the property of parents; (ii) children as the property of the state, with the family unit "perhaps acting as an agent for society" (p. 78); and (iii) his preference: children as

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people where they have exactly the same rights as adults. "In such a framework the problem of children's rights is how to provide such rights, given that children have important differences from adults in that they are immature and developing" (p. 78). Using an economist' gaze, he argued that the "activity of growing up to the status of an adult (who can earn in the labour sense) is also an economic activity" (Easton, 1980, p. 78).

The child liberationist movements of the 1970s were a part of a worldwide questioning of the existing status quo that challenged the less than equal status of women and non-white ethnic groups. The broad activism of the 1970s impacted dramatically on education with writers such as Paolo Friere, A.S. Neill, John Holt, Jonathan Kozol, Nell Postman and many others exciting the minds of young students and of teachers with possibilities for change that sought to shift the locus of power from the authorities in schooling more towards the children, in early childhood in New Zealand during the 1970s there was a willingness to relax a reliance on highly structured, routinised environments for children and embrace the notion of learning through play. This is not to say it was universal or straightforward (May, 2001).

At the same time there was a growing awareness of the status of Maori as tangata whenua (indigenous people) and the importance of the Treaty of Waitangi as a founding document for Aotearoa New Zealand. For Maori, the combination of language loss and a massive urban shift weakened the traditional whanau (family) structures and threatened the future for Maori. At the same time the political focus of Maori was clear: honour the Treaty of Waitangi. The government was forced to implement a process that would restore justice and this happened through legislation that established the Waitangi Tribunal. The route to this was characterised by political activism and large scale protests that included both Maori and Pakeha (non Maori). Interestingly, alongside this sometimes brutal renaissance, the Kohanga Reo (literally, language nest) movement was born. This movement focused on babies and young children as the future for Maori - through them, Maori language would be revitalized and the new generation would be armed with cultural knowl- edge in all its complexity.

Maori support for kohanga reo was undisputed and the effects were astounding. Hundreds of new kohanga mushroomed in the space of a few years, and while not without problems, the movement established itself as viable and powerful. This Maori movement reified the rhetoric of 'the children are our future'- the location of power was with the babies and traditional Maori values, previously dismissed as inferior and primitive, gained in status. Threats to the survival of Maori as a language meant the Kohanga movement loudly advocated for babies and young chil- dren's rights to be Maori, now and in the future.

Initially the national body that represented kohanga reo, the Kohanga Reo National Trust argued that it was more than just an early childhood movement (Irwin, 1990). In recent years there has been a closer alignment although the Kohanga Reo National Trust still hold to their original kaupapa (agenda) of being more than just about the child. The child as cultural capital could be another perspective to add to McDonald's original analysis.

Rights and early childhood education policies

Easton's (1980) analysis of the different lens for viewing children's rights proved to be prophetic. During the 1980s and 1990s, New Zealand underwent significant state sector reform. An earlier, more left wing approach suggested that as long as guardianship responsibilities remain with the parents "then there is a concomitant responsibility of society to enable the guardians to properly meet their responsibilities without severe penalties to the guardians" (Easton, 1980, p. 81). But, in the Treasury Briefing papers to the newly elected 1987 Labour government, the discourse of children as chattels was dominant. Because the choice to have children was a private decision, the cost for educating them should be, in the main borne by the family. The role ~br state involvement within this new-right discourse was minimal. The 1980s educational reforms were directly linked to economic policies. Codd (1997) describes the competing interests in education, which indicated that there were "no longer widely shared educational values and priorities but the narrow self- serving priorities and vested interests of those who control the economy" (p. 2). The economic

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reforms included large scale restructuring of the public service and transforming others of these services into state-owned enterprises charged with making a profit. This monetarist economic thrust alienated and divided traditional Labour Party support base, even within Cabinet, where many ministers were "strong on social policy but economically illiterate...By the time they had realised that the social cost of the policies was too high ... it was too late: the policies were entrenched" (King, 2003, pp 491 -492).

The effects of monetarism were dramatic and families from low socio-economic back- grounds bore the brunt of the reforms. It was during this era that child poverty increased dramati- cally and health statistics revealed third world type illnesses reappearing to epidemic proportions (see Blaiklock, 1999). Since the mid 1990s, reports from the United Nations Committee on Con- vention of the Rights of the Child (UNCROC) strongly criticised New Zealand because successive governments had failed to acknowledge, let alone assess, the impact of the economic reforms on children. Qvortrup (1997/1999) notes the invisibility of children in social statistics, and this was true for New Zealand - the data was not available in any coherent form, resulting in a fragmented, inconsistent approach to children and their rights (Tapp & Hanaghan, 2000). In New Zealand, Belgrave, Blaiklock, Davenport, Hassell, Kiro & Low (2002). Blaiklock, (1999) Ludbrook (2000) and Smith and Taylor (2000) have all commented on the "many examples of the rights of children being ignored, overridden or diminished as a result of government action or inaction (Ludbrook, 2000, p. 123).

The next section describes and discusses some of the policies and documents that emerged during this era and comments on them with regard to the status and importance they ascribe to children' s rights.

Recurring themes: access, participation and quality in the market

Widespread uncertainty characterised the upheaval of the economic reform era in the late eighties. Discontent marred the social and cultural ideals aspired to by women and by Maori. The education system was considered over-centralised and unresponsive to community needs, and to have failed to deliver social and educational equity. Both the political left and the right were critical of an over centralised bureaucracy that was unresponsive to community need and to social changes.

"Change was inevitable given the agenda of the fourth Labour government. Ahnost every aspect of the public sector underwent some form of restructuring, driven by an economic ideology that devolved responsibility for service delivery, yet retained fiscal control. Advi- sors to the government argued that the 'cradle to the grave' ethos of the welfare state did not work; instead, a bold social experiment was introduced, based on a philosophy of individu- alism and the supremacy of the market" (Te One, 2003, p. 19).

The New Zealand early childhood sector, diverse and divided in that time, was preoccupied with the impact of the reforms on educational administration and curriculum. Many national early child- hood organisations, including the early childhood and primary school teachers' union, the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa, were focused on preserving the existing condi- tions for teachers and children in centres in response to regulatory changes that lowered the licensing requirements for trained teachers and increased the ratio of children to adults. Huge energy went into complying with agency demands that detracted fiom a big picture view of early child- hood education. Accessible, free and high quality early childhood services were the dream. Given the economic climate of the free market, trying to achieve these aims became a nightmare.

During this reform era specific concerns abont children's rights were subsumed by wider concerus. The government focus was on increasing participation. This put pressure on existing services and new funding tbr more early childhood places was allocated. Statistically, the partici- pation rates improved, particularly for four year olds, but at what cost? Unethical spending in the private sector marred this funding boost as stories of centre owners spending government monies on their own private businesses and homes emerged (Mitchell, 1996). When teachers' conditions

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are threatened, children's rights are vulnerable. Plus, the free-market approach to education at all levels tended to reduce children to commodities and a new ethic emerged - competing for 'clients ' in order to claim funding. Some advertisements for child care enrolments focused on academic achievement in the pre-school years and this was seen as undermining a child's right to play.

There are complications when the focus is on provision and access, especially when cou- pled with a drive for consumer choice. In the reform era, communities, not the government, were expected to be responsive, and compete for funding in the market for new educational endeavours. Little regard was paid to the capacity or the capability of communities to provide choices, let alone access them. It may be that communities have choices, but their capacity to access these are restricted. Conversely, they may have the capacity to access choices, but there are none. So there can be provision, but entitlement is limited; and there should be entitlement, but provision is limited. However, notions of education as a commodity, and indeed children as commodities are contrary to children's rights.

Such conditions were not conducive even to support for children's rights. First, during that era, many small childcare businesses, especially in semi-rural areas, were genuinely altruistic in their motives to establish services for working parents. This reflected a concern with the rights of children to a safe, secure environment. But, second, because the expenses involved in providing a quality environment were high, compromises, and even unsafe practices were not uncommon. In such cases, clearly children's rights were breached. Finally, when funding is based on numbers of enrolled children, there is constant pressure to keep the roll full, even when this is not in the best interests of the group or individual children enrolled in a particular service.

The early childhood policies

Education to be More, also known as the Meade Report, (Department of Education, [DOE], 1988) followed the recent pattern of compulsory sector reforms and was the basis of Before Five, (1989), the government's policy statement on the administration of early childhood education.

The Meade Report (DOE, 1988) responded to the influences of the time. These included the feminist movement, neo liberal economic ideologies and Maori cultural revitalization. Plus, recent research had presented cogent and persuasive arguments that investment in quality early childhood education was long-term and lasting. So, the benefits were clear, but it was expensive. The question of who paid for early childhood education was contested and this, compromised children's rights to participate.

The Meade Report was obliged to work within terms of reference as set by the Labour Government's programme of social policy reform. The working group made their own contribu- tion to the agenda by adding to the list strong support for early childhood services that were flexible, diverse, responsive, accessible, affordable, accountable, and involved the community.

The report was significant because it also supported "promotion of the rights of children and families" (DOE, 1988, p. 5). There was deliberate emphasis on designing a model of service provision that encompassed "features which are in the interests of the child; features which are in the interests of the caregivers, particularly women and features which are in the interests of cul- tural survival and transmission to succeeding generations - "'achieving the correct balance is crucial" (DOE, 1988, p. 7).

The report clearly articulated rights for children and quoted the Declaration of the Interna- tional Year of the Child, a forerunner to the Convention. It used this as the basis of its conceptual administrative model and recommended funding level(s) (DOE, 1988, p. 14). Twin themes emerged in the report. First was support for the rights of the child, the family and community to high quality early childhood education services, and the second theme argued that, "these services are so im- portant to social well-being and cultural continuity that adequate public funding for them is essen- tial" (DOE, 1988, p. 14). The report was written so as to persuade the government and to remain loyal/aligned to the sector.

But, what about children's rights? According to the Meade Report (DOE, 1988), early childhood education "develops the potential and quality of life of young children in the present

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and for the future" (DOE, 1988, p. 6). Such services were seen as complementary - they supported parents and families and the benefits afforded to children, broadly conceived of as rights, were to society, then and in the future. Children's rights to affordable, accessible, equitable, appropriate early education were used as arguments for funding early childhood education, in the interests of sustaining a healthy society, "which includes all community members, whether or not they have children" (DOE, 1988, p. 20).

The importance of social responsibility is evident in the statement above as is a respect for children's rights. If people without children have a responsibility to children, then children have autonomy and rights. An enormous tension in the debates about children's rights concerns children as autonomous, with rights, while at the same time being part of a family. Being dependent on family is used as an argument against children having rights because they might threaten and undermine parents' rights. In other words, children's rights compete with the rights of others. The fulcrum for these debates is dependency and the earlier argument by Mayall{2003), that children are adults in waiting. There are similar tensions when adults are dependent on family for care, but they still have rights. So the issues are more fundamental. Should children even have rights? Rights are legal entitlements to citizenship (Alston, 1994, May, 2002), and statements supportive of this are evident in the public arena where there is at least a chance of critical discussion. An example of this is the jointly developed Agenda for Children (Ministry of Social Development, [MSD], 2002), and the support documents for the public sector that offer suggestions for how to encourage children's participation (MSD, 2004). However, it is the private, personal, domestic concepts of rights that have more impact on children in their daily lives. So, even though Aotearoa New Zealand is a signatory to UNCROC a common understanding of rights for children has yet to be debated.

In the Meade Report (DOE, 1988), arguments about children's contribution in the future were used in order to provide for them in the present. This was particularly true for the cost-benefit arguments: "good quality early childhood education and care sets the right foundation for chil- dren's future and personal educational development (DOE, 1988, p. 13); plus, the need to fulfil the economic pre-requisites of the 21 ~ century's global economy produced the argument for qual- ity early childhood education for children at risk of failure, "an important consideration at a time when unskilled employment is disappearing" (DOE, 1988, p. 14). Finally, the most significant futuristic statement lies in the short title: "'Education to be more, to be more than they are now" (DOE, 1988, p. 16). This statement can be interpreted in several ways - as a recommendation to fund quality early childhood care and education; as a promise that such an investment will pay off tomorrow and as a statement of entitlement for children to be just that - children, not disadvan- taged by socio-economic status, cultural or religious beliefs, disability or circumstance. This last interpretation dips into deeply held and often nostalgic beliefs about childhood experiences as positive and lasting.

Before Five: the official response

The Meade report (DOE, 1988) was the foundation document for the Labour Government 's Before Five early childhood care and education policy statement. The function of Before Five was to establish a new administrative framework for early childhood, and to promote the sector as equal in status to the compulsory and tertiary sectors. This was powerful. It supported children's rights to participate, with an expectation that the state would fulfil its obligations and enable children to access good quality early childhood education by providing such services.

In 1988, David Lange was both the Prime Minister and the Minister of Education. In his foreword to the Meade Report, Lange wrote: "The care and education received by and given to a young child is crucial to her or his development. Crucial not just to the individual, but to the society in which they will grow up and become adults" (the Meade Report, 1988, p. iii). In Before Five, David Lange wrote: "Improvements in this sector are an investment in the future. "Our children are our future. They need a good start in life" (Lange, 1988, p. iii).

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Again, the child in the future was a reference point. Also apparent were perceptions of children as a financial investment, an ironic position when regarded through a rights-based lens. As part of the state sector reform agenda of the fourth Labour government, plans to reduce support for families with children were introduced; Treasury continued to reduce the inflation rate; and, unem- ployment increased dramatically as New Zealand sold off its State assets to the private sector. Whole towns were affected and to compound the economic stresses, when the National Govern- ment came to power in 1991, social welfare benefits were cut dramatically. The economic reforms had a particularly harsh impact on many children whose family circumstances changed during that time. The UNCROC report and a UNICEF paper commented on the increased numbers of chil- dren, especially very young children, living in poverty (Blaiklock, 1999). The rhetoric of Before Five expressed an overt concern with children's 'needs' that positioned early childhood education as fundamental. This highlights another layer to understanding children's rights. When the focus is on children's needs, more often than not it is the adults who decide and so rights for children are diminished. The philosophical tenets are not the same as if you adopt a rights-based approach, which obligates adults to promote, protect and provide for the enactment of children's rights and empower the child to participate.

Desirable Objectives and Practices 1990 and Charters

With the administrative reforms came a raft of accountability compliances detailed in the Desir- able Objectives and Practices for Chartered Early Childhood Centres (DOPs), (MOE, 1990). These dominated the 'busy' work of teachers as they genuinely and conscientiously developed policies, charters and assessments to the tune of the new expectations. Charters and DOPs became "new instruments of power" (Dahlberg, 2000, p 7) that resulted in resentment within the sector as the accountability agent, the Education Review Office (ERO), seemed less concerned with children and more with policies and measurable outcomes reflective of the managerial, technicist approaches of the newly elected National Government (Willis, 1996).

As regulations promoting quality reversed and conditions for teachers deteriorated, so did conditions for children. Group sizes increased, the requirements for trained teachers decreased, qualifications diversified uncontrollably, and a complex incentive for 'quality funding' added to supply and demand problems, especially in childcare services.

Parallel developments - reports, policies and research

By the mid 1990s, the sector was suffering from reform overload, but it was in this era that several developments proved to be enduringly positive for the sector. These were a mix of legislative, regulatory requirements, political lobbying and pedagogical initiatives. It marked the beginning of significant movement in the early childhood sector towards thinking beyond children's rights to an early childhood education to engaging with theoretical ideas supportive of children's rights in early childhood education.

Future Directions

Increased participation, access and improved quality, all recommendations of the Meade Report were not forthcoming in the early 1990s. As the grip ofmonetarism tightened, and frustrated by the lack of progress, the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI), Te Riu Roa, the union for early childhood teachers, developed a strategy to counter the regressive policy decisions in early child- hood and to protest "the carrying out of 'top down' reviews with very little appropriate consulta- tion with those in the field" (Early Childhood Education Project, [ECCP] 1996, p. 1). ECCP produced a report, Future Directions that focused on "the structures and funding required to deliver education services that will provide the best quality education and care for New Zealand

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children and their families" (McDonald in ECCP, 1996, p. l). McDonald commented that the report was "the first time that such a wide range of services (had) come together to reflect upon their common concerns, to acknowledge their diversity, and to decide upon their common needs for the future" (p.l). The report was a success and revitalized a disenchanted sector by providing political leverage which later converted into a widely agreed to strategic vision fbr early childhood (MOE, 2002).

Te Whariki: The earl), childhood curriculum

It was also during this time that Te Whariki (MOE, 1996), Aotearoa New Zealand's national early childhood curriculum, and one of the most influential early childhood documents was developed (Nuttall, 2003). Despite the dominant economic and accountability discourse of the time, Te Whariki, largely managed to escape this overlay (Te One, 2003).

Te Whariki has an oft-quoted aspiration for children:

To grow up as competent and confident learners and communicators, healthy in mind, body, and spirit, secure in their sense of belonging and in the knowledge that they make a valued contribution to society (MOE, 1996, p. 9).

It is a strong aspiration for children as citizens in the here and now. But, underlying the statement is an ambiguous relationship between the present and the future: are contributions valued for what they are in the context of the centre, or valued as potentially economic contributions in the future, or valued because of anticipated participation in a democracy, something that can only happen if the right to participate is guaranteed The latter implies that the curriculum educates for citizenship and certainly goals and outcomes in the strands of the curriculum can be directly linked to this. But the former can be linked to national educational strategies as determined by the government of the time, i.e., economic aspirations.

A further concept to consider is the reciprocal relationship between generations and what contribution might mean in that sense'? Easton, (1980), suggested that one generation' s obligations to look after children and then that same generation's obligations to look after the elderly were part of a social contract. Mayall (2003) too articulated this notion of a social contract and added, "It has been noted that in many welfare state societies the distribution of resources is prioritising the old (Thomson, 1996 cited in Mayall, 2003, p. 17). Further evidence from the United Kingdom (Bradwell, 2002 cited by Mayall, 2003, p. 18) suggests that the middle generation "those in power ... - are taxing themselves lightly and that the children who suffered badly in 18 years of Conservative government - are only slowly being lifted out of poverty" (Mayall, 2003, pp. 17, 18).

The nuances of the Te Whariki statement, and indeed, Te Whariki itself, are interesting. Implied are social and cultural conditions of 'being ' : being an individual child in the centre; being a part of a group of peers; and being part of the centre and its projected image to the community in which it is located or which it serves, and being a participant in New Zealand's democratic process. There is no question that there is widespread agreement with Te Whariki, which is based on principles of empowerment, of family and community, of relationships and of holistic develop- ment (Nuttall, 2003). But enactment, with a specific focus on children's rights is less clear.

The revised DOPs and Quality in Action

The official response to Te Whariki resulted in a revision of the DOPs to include the principles and strands of the early childhood curriculum. A growing interest in socio-cultural theories supported a perception of children as active participants in their own education. This interest was mandated in the revised DOPs (MOE, 1998). To support this requirement, Ye Mahi Whai Hua, or Quality in Action (MOE, 1998) was produced as a professional development resource for educators.

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Quality in Action explicated a range of theories by providing scenarios, signposts, reflective ques- tions and recommended readings. It indirectly referred to Article 12 of the United Nations Conven- tion on the Rights of the Child by suggesting that "supportive and responsible educators guide children to make choices within a planned environment, acknowledging that children are active participants in their own learning" (MOE, 1998, p. 21). This challenged the traditional role of teachers as experts and moved towards a more co-constructive approach to learning in which both teachers and children learn, but about different aspects of the same task (Jordan, 2004).

Perceptions of the child as a co-contributor to the 'process' quality of the environment represents a dramatic move from a passive recipient to an active social actor- a citizen in the centre, with democratic rights. Even though it may be that these rights are about the choices children make, how they are supported crosses the boundaries from process quality into the quality of the conditions that the community of learners, (the early childhood centre), works within. So, while the rights of children are not explicitly stated terms of influence at the structural level, they are implied. As Jordan (2004) puts it, "the major issue here is one of the use of power. If children are to be empowered as equal contributors to learning situations, they need to be in an environment in they learn that they have the power to make decisions about the direction of their learning" (p. 42).

Back to the future: Research and policy connect

Learning and Teaching Stories

Part of the negotiations for the development ofTe Whariki included the future development of an assessment framework. The work of Margaret Carr linked dispositions to the strands ofTe Whariki, and these dispositions later formed the basis of Learning Stories, a narrative, formative assessment tool. Alongside the Learning Story framework, further research was undertaken to develop a Teach- ing Story framework designed to shift the focus of evaluation of early childhood programmes towards a more rights-based approach using five "child's voice" questions (Carr, May & Podmore, 1998, Figure 1).

Child's voice questions

Belonging

Well-being

Exploration

Communication

Contribution

Do you appreciate and under- stand my interests and abilities and those of my family?

Do you meet my daily needs with care and sensitive consideration?

Do you engage my mind, offer challenges, and extend my world?

Do you invite me to communi- cate and respond to my own particular efforts?

Do you encourage and facilitate my endeavours to be part of a wider group?

Do you know me?

Can l trust you?

Do you let me fly?

Do you hear me?

Is this place fair for us?

FIGURE 1: Carl May & Podmore, 1998

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34 European Early Childhood Education Research Journal

The learning story format and the teaching story research supported children as stakeholders in their own learning. Whether or not this shifted the actual power dynamics beyond what happened in the centre is hard to know. But "the idea of focusing on the 'child's voice' in defining and evaluating quality is consistent with current understanding of early childhood centre quality" (May & Podmore, 1998, p. 24). It is also consistent with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, in particular Article 12.1 in which the child as an equal stakeholder has the right to participate and be consulted.

The early childhood assessment exemplar project

Another example of research with a focus on children's rights is the early childhood assessment exemplar project (MOE, 2005). This project documented examples of assessment that are inclu- sive and formative. The child's voice is a feature of the type of narrative assessment sought. This is set alongside teachers' and parents' perspectives. In the ideal situation, all three stakeholders contribute equally to the assessment equation, or at least, equitably. Children's rights are to the fore in exemplars: an acknowledgment that children's voices are important influences on curricu- lum decisions and directions.

Pathways to the future, Nga Huarahi Arataki - The Strategic Plan

in 1999 a new Labour government was elected and the development of a long-term strategic plan for early childhood was one of its promises. May comments:

"Initially the expectations for the Plan were for reform rather than revolution, but the balance soon tipped. The final consultation document restated much of the vision of the earlier Meade Report, but gave new emphasis to the Articles of the United Nations Con- vention on the Rights of the Child ..."(May, 2002, p. 29)

Led by Anne Meade, (of the Meade Report), the Working Group for the Strategic Plan stated:

"Our long term vision is for whanau and families to have a universal entitlement to a reasonable amount of free, high quality early childhood education" (Strategic Plan Work- ing Group, 2001, p. 5).

Further support for free, universal entitlement to early childhood education came from the Human Rights Commissioner who wrote:

"In the New Zealand context, the results of the Competent Children longitudinal study and other research confirms the very significant impact of quality early childhood education on a child's achievement at primary school. On that basis early childhood education can be viewed as an implicit element of the right to free primary education provided for in the international Conventions that New Zealand has ratified (Noonan, 2001, p. 65).

It was argued that access to free early childhood education, as a statutory right for children, would remove significant cost and access barriers (Mitchell, 2002, p. 135).

As with all early childhood initiatives, the Strategic Plan provoked criticism both during its development and on its release in 2002- (Dalli & Te One, 2003; Mitchell, 2002). Despite this, there are several distinguishing characteristics in the Strategic Plan supportive of children's rights. First, the conceptual framework includes three goals (participation, quality, collaboration) that coexist as 'pathways', with varying degrees of interdependence. This is a potentially powerful strategy because of the collaborative work envisaged across key government ministries. UNCROC's last two reports have commented on New Zealand's lack of coordinated policy to support chil-

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dren's rights. Inter government ministry and agency policy discussions have the potential to increase awareness, certainly about early childhood education and care, but also about very young children and their rights.

Second, and further to this collaborative approach, the theoretical framework of the Agenda for Children (MSD, 2002) adopts the ecological model of the whole child as an active participant in and across multiple sites. This is the same model (Bronfenbrenner, 1979) used in Te Whariki and is a theoretical perspective familiar to most early childhood practitioners. The advantages in the holistic approach proposed by the Agenda for Children and the Strategic Plan, promotes a mutual support for children's rights. Third, collaborative approaches also have the potential to realise another thread drawn through from the Meade Report to the Strategic Plan - that the early child- hood sector has equal status with the other education sectors. This certainly promotes rights for young children, if only by making them visible in the wider education sector. Finally, collabora- tive relationships, or pathways, go beyond the walls of a child's centre and into communities, a function certainly supported by reconceptualist ideas about children and early childhood services, not as separate and separated from the social and political world, but as citizens, - participants in society "beyond (the) statistical measures" that record enrolment (May, 2003).

The early childhood lobby worked in this instance. As the foreword to the Strategic Plan states:

"The Government's vision is for all New Zealand children to have the opportunity to participate in quality early childhood education, no matter their circumstances ~'' (Mal- lard, Minister of Education, in MOE, 2002, p. 1).

This vision encompasses many of the old ideas (participation, access and quality), but re-intro- duces a statement about equity: "no matter their circumstances" that assumes entitlement for young children to an early childhood education. This concept harked back to a founding educational idea that the state should provide all New Zealand children regardless of social status or academic ability to a free education (Alcorn, 1999). However, this idea of universal, free early childhood education has always been contentious. Two years later, Helen May wrote:

"The government's objective, should broadly speaking be, that every child: whatever their family circumstances, whether their parents are solo, separated or married, at work or at home, whether they be rich or poor, whether they live in town or country, are Maori or Pakeha, should have a right as a citizen to a free early childhood education that meets their family needs, recognizes their cultural heritage and provides a rich learning environment in a community of learners that empowers both adults and children to learn and grow as equal participants in a democratic society" (May, 2004, p 16).

This statement positions children as citizens, alongside the adults, entitled to an education that concerns more than access, (in terms of attendance), and quality (in terms of standard measures), but also includes appropriateness. For Maori as tangata whenua, and for Pasifika people, access to early childhood education to ensure cultural transmission, a goal of the Meade Report (DOE, 1988) is clearly rights based and remains an issue in terms of cost, provision and access. The statement attempts to balance the rights of the child with the needs of the adults/families and the obligations of the state.

Children: the promise of the future

Within the mainstream framework, our education policies are fraught by tensions that can be linked to views of children as "not there yet". Prout's comment confirms this. He suggests, "in both historical and contemporary societies social policy has tended to see children through no- tions of dependence, vulnerability, malleability and investment in the future" (Prout, 2003, p. 4). Every policy document examined for this paper began with a vision of the child in the future,

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regardless of the political context m which it was developed. Views of children as adults in waiting, vulnerable and dependent, na'fve, innocent serves to disempower them and, marginalizes them as a silenced, disenfranchised class. Such attitudes undermine attempts to understand what rights for children mean beyond the rhetoric that traps them as less than equal in status to adults because they are children. It also ignores the reality that children have rights now, in the present.

There is a rich irony in many policy documents: - the rhetorical claims about the impor- tance of children can be found in the opening comments of the policy, but very often, a visible acknowledgement of children's rights is hard to discern beyond that initial point. This is in part because of a shift in focus from needs to rights, something not always picked up on in the transition from research to policy. So, while the Meade Report is founded on "a respect for the basic rights of children" (DOE, 1988, p. 7), David Lange, in Before Five, comments that young children "need a good start in life". Even though things have changed, the child in the future is still a theme: a decade after the Meade Report and Before Five, the Chief Executive of the Ministry of Education wrote: "Early childhood education provides a sound foundation in the early years for children's future learning and achievement" (Fancy, 1998, p, 2). To reinforce the fact that futures are hard to escape, the latest policy is titled "'Pathways to the Future" (MOE, 2002).

Blue skies thinking? Why not?

Trevor Mallard, Minister of Education, who had, at one point criticized the Strategic Plan tbr "blue skies thinking" (May,2001) for recommending free early childhood services, has turned the rhetoric into action with a promise of money and of 20 hours free early childhood education for four year olds, starting in 2007. The 2004 budget allocated an additional $365 million for early childhood education to be spent over the next four years - a victory for some of New Zealand's youngest citizens. A combination of regulatory requirements for qualified teachers, pay parity for kindergarten teachers, and in-depth professional development programmes to support "the effec- tive implementation of the early childhood education assessment for learning exemplars" are all presented as part of a wider package for early childhood education alongside another initiative - the "Working for Families" package (Cullen, 2004), which sets out, in principle, significantly increased tax support for families with children. On the morning after, commentators noted that the Budget was the first in nearly three decades to "deliver a social dividend to working families" (Cullen, 2004, p. 9). Detractors have criticised this budget as pandering to the electorate, support- ers have commented that this budget invests in social justice (CPAG, 2004, Easton, 2004).

While the news fbr early childhood can be regarded with "cautious optimism" (Podmore, 2004, personal communication, 2004), because the 'how' of this has yet to be revealed, the fact sheet from the Minister's Office is clearly committed to new funding that delivers affordable, accessible and quality early childhood education: "Budget 2004 continues this Government's com- mitment to value and invest in future generations ... and supports a commitment to a fair, safe society" (Cullen, 2004, p. 9). Themes of the future remain, and while 'rights to' early childhood education continue to underpin the "constructive dreaming" (Boyd, 2004, personal communica- tion) for policy analysts, the fact that funding for professional development for the Exemplar Project is an indication that the 'rights in' early childhood features too.

As yet, the risks to this fiscal agenda are not clear, but the sector has been buffeted and bruised by changes in administration in the past. Although the rhetoric of promoting quality early childhood as beneficial for children will be hard to sideline now, the routes, or pathways, to real- izing this will certainly differ should there he a change of government. The issues of power and control remain: wider societal goals, be they cultural, educational, economic or political, deter- mine the allocation of resources. Children's rights therefore remain vulnerable because as we have seen, when the energy of the sector is directed to protecting existing conditions, rights for children move into the background.

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Iq Boldemphasisthewriter'sown.

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Correspondence about this paper should be addressed to:

Sarah Te One Institute for Early Childhood Studies

Victoria University of Wellington PO Box 600 Wellington

New Zealand

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