Govt funding pledge for more teachers excludes early childhood

The government has announced a $95 million package to train or support an extra 3,000 teachers over the next four years. The Education Minister Chris Hipkins says the pre-budget announcement was a direct response to ongoing complaints about a shortage of good teachers. However the announcement makes no mention of the early childhood education sector, which says it needs an extra 2000 early childhood teachers to train each year. Kathy Wolfe is chief executive of the early childhood teacher education provider Te Rito Maioha.