A two-year-old boy previously enrolled at Mighty Minds Educare in Penrose, Auckland, has been denied re-enrollment citing “the strict seven-hour law by Ministry of Education”.
The childcare centre kicked out the boy after his parents refused to let him attend a minimum of seven hours a day at the centre, NZ Herald reported.
“But the only relevant law is that childcare centres must tell the ministry what hours each child attends for funding purposes,” NZ Herald said.
The centre’s policy is to offer two options, either seven-hour a day from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. or nine hours at any time between 7:30 a.m. and 6 p.m.
Parents Vinaya Ravi and Ravi Balasubramaniam enrolled their son to the childcare centre in July this year on agreed time of four hours a day, three days a week until he became sick in September. Ani was given admission and centre was paid in full for the seven-hour charge of $180 for three days a week.
Centre Manager Cheryl Cheng told media that she advised the family to withdraw Ani while he was sick so they could stop paying the fees.
When the parents tried to enrol Ani again in October, they received an email from Centre Administrator Lily Schubert stating he could not be enroled as the policy requires Ani for at-least seven-hours at the centre.
“Due to strict laws with the Ministry of Education, we do require Ani to start attending the full (part-time 7 hours). Unfortunately, we are unable to allow him to continue coming in from 8.30-12.30. This is a legal requirement we have to meet,” Ms Schubert told NZ Herald.
Ani turns three next month and is intolerant to multiple foods and suffers from severe eczema. Ani’s mother said he needed medication, including a twice-daily ayurvedic medicine which the family bought from India but which Mighty Minds would not give him.
"They wouldn't administer the natural medicine because it was not from New Zealand, it was not approved," she said.
Ani would not be able to have lunch provided at the centre and carried lunch from home and felt that it was unsafe for him to stay at the centre for more than four hours.
The parents looked at 10-12 childcare centres in Auckland but chose Mighty Minds as it was closest to their home, was clean and welcoming.
Centre Manager Cheng enrolled Ani to start with four-hour a day in July on the basis that he would move to seven hours when ready.
"We were very, very satisfied with the place. To be honest, the staff are really, really good," Vinaya Ravi said.
"It was going good for like two months, but they kept on saying whenever they saw me trying to push him for seven hours."
Cheng, who co-owns the centre which opened in 2015, said she was worried that the Ministry of Education might not approve of the arrangement she made with the family for them to pay the full seven-hour fee for only four hours' care.
"When we were going through licensing, the ministry said they needed to look through our fee structure to make sure we are not over-charging the family," she told NZ Herald.
"We only have two sessions, and that's why I tried very hard to say kindy has shorter hours, all these other options have shorter hours. At the moment we cannot create separate sessions for every child who has different needs."
In addition, by the time the family wanted to bring Ani back after his illness in October, another child was about to turn two, and there was no space left in the two-year-olds' room.
But Ravi said that the centre allowed him the four-hour a day earlier in July and should have looked after him.
“They should say a child is a child and not like a kind of business," she said. "That's just a money-making attitude."
Katrina Casey, Deputy Secretary of Ministry of Education said the ministry was investigating the family's complaint against the early childhood education (ECE) service.
"Our investigation so far has not identified any breaches with funding rules or regulatory requirements," she said.
"While ECE's themselves are responsible for decision making on enrolments and cancellations, cancellation should always be seen as a last option.
"We do not have any requirements or laws that require a child to attend their ECE for seven or more hours. The only requirements we have related to funding. For example, the 20 hours ECE provides for up to 20 hours subsidised hours per week for a maximum of 6 hours per day per child,” Ms Casey told the NZ Herald.