Welfare reforms and families – I’ve made my submission, have you?
You might have come across this beautilful Mäori proverb:
Hütia te rito o te harakeke, kei hea te kömako e kö?Kï mai ki a au, ‘He aha te mea nui i te ao?’ Mäku e kï atu, ‘He tängata, he tängata, he tängata’.
If the heart of the flax is pulled out, where will the kömako sing? If you ask me what is most important in this world, I will reply, ‘People, people, people’
Right now in Aotearoa, I would expect the reply to be more like: ‘It is money, money, money’.
Here’s a relavant media release, Bennetts approach leaves parents with no options.
This is the core of the bill, from the minister herself:
The proposed social obligations aim to reduce long-term welfare dependency and prevent the cycle of disadvantage continuing from parent to child. Beneficiaries with dependent children will be required to take “all reasonable steps” to have their dependent child:
- aged three or over, enrolled in and attending an approved Early Childhood Education Programme (ECE) until they start school
- enrolled in and regularly attending school from age of five or six (depending on when the child first starts school)
- enrolled with a primary health care provider, and up-to-date with the WellChild checks.
This may or may not be similar to your situation…
My husband works, and is studying, I’m at home with our two children, 4.5 and 2.5 we are beginning homeschooling, have play groups and outings with other friends with little children, and ECE and kindy in my area are of varying quality and do not follow my learning philosophy. All ok because we are ‘employed’. We go to our GP if and when we need to.
Suddenly, my husband loses his job, we decide that to make ends meet until he finds employment (or I do) we go on a benefit, as we are entitled to. Now, to ‘qualify’ we have to hand over some of our human rights, we are lesser parents, better to pull our family apart incase we get to comfortable on a benefit, because we need ‘incentive’ to find work. As if loss of/or lack of a job is not enough stress, the stress of leaving our children with strangers, (which would cost us money) and the stress that would cause our kids. And that’s ok?
We lose our rights? We are not entitled to care for our own children? This could happen to anyone.
My submission:
I OPPOSE Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill
The Human Rights Act of 1993 states, “Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children”. This new bill will breach human rights of parents who find it necessary to accept welfare payments. This bill targets vulnerable families and parents who are no doubt under stress, and is a heavy handed approach which I believe will not benefit at risk children. Furthermore, parents who care for, and chose alternative paths of learning for their children are already meeting ‘social obligations’.
As a teenager, due to the sudden and accidental death of my father, my mother found herself a solo parent with four children to raise, and in need of government support, and ENTITLED to that support until such time as she would be able to support herself. I have some understanding of the stresses parents in these situations face, and parents need support, rather than hardline coercion. Children need to be with their family, and nurtured, they must not be treated as tools to force parents to comply with this bill.
Myself and my children are fortunate to be part of a family with both parents, and we have decided to home educate our children, and we are doing a great job, our children are not stressed and are learning in a way that is not possible for them, were they in ECE or primary school. Should I find myself a solo mother, and in need of some government support, my rights (and those of my children) would be sidelined in order to meet these new requirements.
I find this bill to be totally unacceptable and recommend that it is rejected.
You can read about the bill here, read more submissions here, and make your own online submission here, you have until November 1, 2012.
An interesting article about the myth of ‘Early Learning’ from the intro:
Children should start attending school later, not earlier, Canadian development psychologist Dr. Gordon Neufeld reveals. “Early learning” programs for young children have no benefits for kids, he adds. So why are governments running down the opposite track?
Read the rest here.
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I am in support of this bill, not because of bias against people on the benefit but because of the statistical outcomes for children in families on the benefit. New Zealand has a shockingly high rate of child poverty and child abuse, among the highest in the OECD. The status quo is not working.
This bill is not targeted at families like your potential scenario (temporary job loss), where the parents are dedicated to their children. I would guess that the homeschooling rate among families on the benefit is much lower than the average (which is very low anyway).
This bill is targeted at those children who at 5 start school never having seen a book. Child abuse rates are much higher among children in families on the benefit, which is one reason these families are being targeted for preschool.
Multiple scientific studies (using both treatment and control groups) have found huge benefits of preschool education for children living in poverty. These include much lower teen pregnancy rates, higher rates of college attendance, higher home ownership and higher salaries. These are large and significant effects.
This is why I support the bill, I understand that among families like yours children might not be better off in preschool, but in general the benefits can be huge and long-lasting.
This is a reply to Jenn. Four points:
1. Whether or not the law is better for most people is not a reason for forcing it on everyone. What happens to those who it does not benefit?
2. You are assuming all beneficiaries are people who have decided to be on benefit, who do not care about/for their children, etc. Here is a scenario for you: There is someone who has paid taxes all his/her life and happens to have become sick or disabled. That person has decided to homeschool his/her child (maybe the child is more intelligent than other children, or maybe the parent has just decided to homeschool their child, whatever the reason). Under the new bill that person and his/her partner does not have a right to homeschool his/her child. This person is also not going to go back to work because of their sickness or disability. So the law is not doing anything in terms of getting the person back to work.
3. Maybe higher wages is important to you but it is not important to everyone. Some people just want the love of their family and to be around their family. We are not just machines to serve some kind of a big corporate market.
4. Why should the government be making such decisions for people?
I am interested in your perspective Jenn, and thank you for your comments.
I wanted to keep this post short, and it just touches on some of my concerns around this bill, so I will add my other thoughts here. I see I ought to elaborate, I have tried to put together more information and background to my position.
I should also note, I’m really only speaking from my experience, and raising concerns that would affect me and my family. I am really concerned about the high child abuse and poverty rates we have, and I will say more on that below. I have had some experience working children who might fit the ‘high risk’ label, who turn up for school having not had breakfast, and having things like packets of chips for lunch.. I have also worked with children who ‘have it all’ – well, except for time with their parents, and to be honest, I think those kids are at risk of different kinds of damage, displaying almost the same kinds of behavioral problems, they just ticked the boxes academically. For some of the time while I studied I received a student allowance, and I dreaded having to go into Work and Income, it was a consistently degrading and humiliating experience. But, I knew it was short term, and I had some sense of my self worth… From that alone, I can glean some idea as to why the current system doesn’t work, as you note.
While I share your concerns about child poverty and child abuse, I’m not convinced that this bill will make a positive change for vulnerable children. The bill is toted as proposing to help disadvantaged children and at the same time is being put forward as a means to get people off the benefit, breaking the cycle of dependancy. Lofty goals, but I just don’t see that this approach will work, I think the most marginalised parents and families will be pushed even further away, taking their children with them. I’m going to add some links from other articles, some opinion, and another that summarises some relevant research around learning.
I am interested in the studies you mention, can you post a link to them?
I wonder how the studies were carried out, did the pre school education programs involve the parents and families, thereby having a wider impact on the community, were the parents given the option, or was it enforced? Also there are many different approaches to pre school education and learning in and out of school, so I’m interested in the models of learning, or philosophies used in the studies.
But first of all, I don’t think it will work, and that children and families that need the most support will not be reached by these changes, but will be likely more alienated. I don’t think it will get to the real issues that put these kids at risk.
When considering the supposed long-term assumed benefits of ECE, this opinion piece is interesting, have you seen it?
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10835350
The article asked the question, Should preschool be compulsory?
On the ‘yes’ side, is the CEO of the Early Childhood Council, certainly not a neutral position, but still..
He feels as you do, there will be far reaching good outcomes:
“It is our hope that many beneficiary families will be strengthened by finding support in “community hubs”. These hubs provide both education and care for children, and practical support for families such as health care advice and parenting classes. We know there is a shortage of such services. We hope the new childcare requirements on beneficiaries will increase the pressure on Government to provide centres of this sort. And to do so in the lowest-income areas where they are really needed.”
I think it’s short-sighted to assume that teachers in such centers will have the time, knowledge or skills to create such ‘hubs’, which grow out of real community and cannot be forced. Particularly as the government recently reduced the number of fully qualified teachers in childcare, and that we even have the resources to provide this kind of childcare model.
Here are some notes from the article, on the ‘no’ side, that are inline with my thoughts on this issue, and why I think it will not necessarily improve the lives of at risks children:
“Educational researchers regularly report that a nurturing home environment will have a more profound impact on a child’s educational achievement than preschool programmes – a reason often stated for why more advantaged children are not often found to gain much, if anything, educationally from ECE.”
Further:
“Though good parents abound, we must face the reality that some are not properly nurturing and interacting with their children. Yet taking decision-making away from parents in dysfunctional situations, as compulsory preschooling would do, absolves them of their responsibility for their children and does nothing to correct the most pressing problem: poor parenting. No amount of high-quality ECE will ever make up for this lack.” As mentioned at the conclusion, I also think that forcing parents to put children into ECE would undermine the family.
If you have the time, this article is really interesting, addressing some of the massive changes that would have to take place, the numbers of families and children who would be affected – it also gives some political background about setting up ‘exclusion criteria’ for people drawing on benefits.
http://livenews.co.nz/2012/09/state-of-it-will-minister-paula-bennetts-exclusion-criteria-actually-further-impoverish-our-most-vulnerable-children/
As an economist, you might find this worth considering:
“…We are left to consider the consequences of this exclusion criteria, left, in the absence of Government departmental costings, to calculate what impact having 220,000 children enroll in early childhood education will have on the already high cost of this service. Simple supply and demand formulae cause concerns that the costs will inevitably increase. Will the Government foot the bill for children forced into 15 hours of education-care per week? The calculations based on the numbers suggest that is unsustainable and will create a fiscal failure – unless of course the parents fail to enroll their children and have their benefits cut by half. If so the Government is calculating sustaining the policy through non-compliance.”
This last article is worth a read, and noted in the original post, I’m sharing this because I don’t believe the current education system serves children or families, and for me this bill assumes that children being in educational institutes from such a young age is healthy and normal, and it assumes that current mainstream education system is meeting the needs of families and children.
http://www.imfcanada.org/issues/nurturing-children-why-early-learning-does-not-help
Finally, I also think it’s vital for human rights to be upheld and protected, no matter what. It’s not negotiable.
I see you note that this bill is not intended to target families like mine, or other families who do not opt in to ECE. However, we would be affected, if we need to draw down on a benefit at some point in time.
Mark – you grossly mischaracterized my statement
I’ll respond to your post following your numbering system
1. Most laws are not pareto optimal (they don’t make everyone better off). They are still enforced, most benefit programs would fall into this category. It would be difficult to enforce any law if the requirement was that it didn’t make anyone worse off.
2. I am not by any means making that assumption, and I state that clearly. That’s the difference between statistics and generalizations. I was citing statistics in my comment. The facts are New Zealand’s child poverty and child abuse statistics are shockingly high. If a child was on the benefit early on in life they are much more likely to be on the benefit when they become an adult, and much more likely to be subject to child abuse. These are statistics, they do not apply to all beneficiaries.
This law is one attempt at breaking this cycle. It would require all children to choose a GP as well as have well child visits, these might catch more child abuse victims before they are killed or badly injured. I realize that you believe homeschooling one’s child while on the benefit is more important than stopping child abuse and breaking the poverty cycle. (see what I’m doing here?)
This law only applies to “a benefit that is jobseeker support, sole parent support, a supported living payment, or an emergency benefit.” I don’t know the benefit system well, but I don’t think this includes sick or disabled beneficiaries (invalid’s benefit?)
3. I absolutely support people’s choice not to work or contribute to the economic machine in order to stay home with their families. But, why should I have to pay for their choices? Salaries was the end of my list of benefits, after teen pregnancy and home ownership. Most people (not all) do actually want to make a living wage, and education is a proven way to achieve it.
4. Why should the government be making such decisions for people?
This is a philosophical question – I am on the side of government interventions that increase welfare overall, many people would rather less government intervention irregardless of the impact on social welfare.
Angela – you raised some good points, I should preface my comments with the assumption that the government would provide high quality childcare for all. The studies I mentioned were based on high quality childcare. There’s a really good podcast which discusses the studies I mentioned:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/10/19/163256866/episode-411-why-preschool-can-save-the-world
I did read the articles you cited, and generally agreed with the Canadian one, the assumption is that the children have a safe, nurturing environment at home, which would be ideal but is unrealistic. There’s no empirical evidence to determine the costs of forced socialization (other than his Nazi example – which was a bit extreme).
The outcomes talked about in the livenews one is assuming families find these criteria too arduous, and instead take the 50% benefit hit. I wouuld expect most families to comply with the criteria.
Ideally I would make some changes to the bill, allowing for a 1 year exemption for families going through temporary hardship. When it comes down to it I don’t think that the government should pay parents to stay home with their kids once they’re school-aged, but I appreciate that many people believe differently