20 Hours
On the 19 November 2007, Kindercare Learning Centres opted into the "20 hours" scheme - thereby ensuring that all our parents of 3 and 4 year olds would be receiving a saving on their weekly fees. Funding rates for "20 hours" have been calculated to cover the minimum regulated standard of care. Kindercare is committed to providing outstanding early childhood care and education - we do not offer a minimum regulated standard of care.
This does mean that our operating costs for these "20 hours" are not fully covered by funding. In order to opt into the scheme, we have had to therefore make changes to our enrolment policy. All 3 and 4 year olds must now be enrolled for a minimum of 2 full days per week and we are no longer able to offer half days or sessional care for these children. As we cannot charge parents for the 20 hours (maximum of 6 hours per day), we have had to build in a chargeable portion of each day, that a fee still applies to.
Kindercare is licensed to provide full day care and education and we therefore strive to maximise the number of full time children in our care. As our operating and administrative costs are basically the same, whether a child attends 2 days or 5 days per week, we are able to spread the recovery of costs over 5 days for our full time parents as opposed to over 2 days for our part time parents. It is our full time parents who have therefore received the most significant weekly savings on their fees. While we acknowledge that this is not ideal for our part time parents, we had very limited options available to us, because of how the "20 hours" was structured. It was either give parent's some weekly savings, or not opt in at all.
If you have any further queries regarding the "20 hours" policy, please email our Communications Manager, Barbs Tozer on: barbs@kindercare.co.nz
