Peaceful March against cuts to quality & funding for ECE

Last Saturday it wasn't raining for a change and Ilias and I decided to make the most of the fine spells and join the march against cuts in ECE (Early Childhood Education: nurseries and kindies) in Tauranga. The Early Childhood Centers and parents of kids under 5 in NZ are very unhappy with the decision of the government to cut their funding to nurseries and kindies with 20%. Now these centers are getting 100% funding, under the condition that all their teachers are fully qualified. If they only receive 80% funding, they will start laying off qualified teachers, who cost a lot more of course, which will decrease the level of education.
Personally I think it's quite rude of the government to first encourage the EC centers to train their teachers and then take away their funding.

Most of Ilias and Jacob's teachers were at the march, which was a huge success. I'm actually very happy with this new nursery. It seems like the teachers are really enjoying their job and loving the kids. More effort is put into learning Maori as well. Ilias can already say half the prayer (karakia) which is said before lunch. Soon he's going to be better at Te Reo (Maori) than me!

I'd like to know how many Kiwi mums are staying at home until their kids can go to school. Because this is only at the age of five and the nurseries are very expensive compared to the wages, many of the mums are basically forced to stay at home. If they have 2 children with an age difference of 2 years, it means that they have to stay at home for 7 years!!! I wonder what that does to those women and their careers. Imagine you're in IT or engineering? It must be so tough to get back into your field. Because there are so many of these mums, a whole network is in place with all sorts of activities so keep them sane. There's f.i. Mainly Music, a initiative of the Protestant Church. I used to take the kids there when we were still living in Matua. Every Tuesday morning we went to Matua Hall to dance and sing for half an hour. After the twelve years I spent in the catholic schools back home, I didn't expect myself ever singing songs about Jesus and God again. After that the mums would sit down and have tea and cake (baked by a whole team of volunteers who lead these activities - quite amazing people!), while the little ones were playing by themselves. Ilias and Jacob loved it, but I didn't feel much at ease amongst those women and only met one real friend there. Many women of the Mainly Music group know each other from the local Playcenters. That's another way of keeping themselves busy. Every morning they can go to those centers, where their kids can play away and they get a break.There are quite a few places in town that provide free nurseries for those women. There's f.i. a supermarket, a gym and a swimmingpool where you can leave your kids behind, while you're doing your shopping or working out. This wouldn't be a bad thing to introduce in Belgium, wouldn't it?