WEST PENNANT HILLS ABC2 CENTRE TO CLOSE - A GREAT LOSS TO LOCAL FAMILIES
WEST PENNANT HILLS ABC2 CENTRE TO CLOSE
ONE OF EIGHT IN TOTAL IN NSW
GREAT LOSS TO LOCAL FAMILES
Despite the announcement by PPB (the Court Appointed Receivers of ABC Learning), that 210 centres will remain open there are still some parents and children who face a distressing time having to find alternative care and one of the eight in NSW to close is in the seat of Berowra.
“Children attending the West Pennant Hills ABC Centre will have been told that their centre will close by 15 May 2009 and I am sure that it will be causing a great deal of heart ache,” Mr Ruddock said
“Over 20 families are affected and this has put an enormous pressure on Michael Mastelero and his 4 staff who consider themselves a close knit centre and with staff, parents and children feeling the loss as one big family!
The Government has also broken its election promise to provide 15 hours of government funded preschool a week for all 4 year olds. Its website now states that any costs for the 15 hours of preschool will be passed onto parents.
“PPB has said that ongoing, quality care for over 90% of the children in the ABC2 centres across Australia has been achieved however and what about the 20 children in my electorate at West Pennant Hills,” Philip Ruddock said.
With 130,000 jobs having been lost in Australia since December, the job prospects for the 20% of ABC staff who will lose their jobs is pretty grim for staff and their own families.
The whole issue of ABC Learning has only sought to shield the Government from the questions that really need to be asked about childcare and early childhood education in Australia.
In particular, the Government’s ridiculously politically-correct National Early Learning Framework, its failure to introduce the A-E quality rating system that they promised before the last election and its failure to outline exactly who will pay for the higher qualified staff and higher staff/child ratios that their expert Advisory Panel recommended.
All of this comes on top of speculation that the Government will make cuts to family benefits, including childcare, in the upcoming budget. So much for taking care of working families - as Labor loudly promised to do before the last election,” Philip Ruddock said.