According to a study released on Nov. 9, qualified early childhood educators are leaving the field to find better wages and improved working conditions somewhere else. It’s a trend Nova Scotia workers say is easy to spot.
By Heather McLeod
Posted: Nov. 10, 2004
The study reports that early childhood educators are fleeing the field to find better wages and work conditions. Photo: Heather McLeod
Greg Malbeuf worked for 10 years at St. Joseph’s Early Childhood Education Centre in Halifax. He loved working with the children but as time progressed he became disillusioned with his income.
“A big part of it was wages,” he says. “People aren’t getting rich doing it. It’s a below-average paying job. People with university degrees are doing it and making $10 an hour.”
Malbeuf left the field two years ago and now has a higher paying job at a Halifax-based promotions company.
He was also unimpressed with the working conditions.
“Somewhere along the way, the kids became unimportant,” Malbeuf says. “The organization didn’t put money into quality staff, supplies for the kids, or a proper playground.”
He says the big issue for child-care in Nova Scotia is that there is no government funding.
“Ontario puts lots of money into child-care,” he says. “It’s a more important issue in some other provinces.”
The federal government recently announced it is looking to set up a national child-care plan with the provinces, much like the child-care program in Quebec. Federal funding of $5 billion to be paid over five years is meant to help the provinces introduce or improve child-care programs.
A study released Tuesday by a non-profit organization that aims to move human resource issues in child care forward reported that workers who care for toddlers and preschoolers are paid half the average wage in Canada. Full-time child-care workers earn an average of $22,500 a year, states the report, entitled “Working for Change: Canada’s Child Care Workforce.” The Child Care Human Resources Sector Council study showed that only half of early-childhood education students plan to work in child-care and five years after graduation, only 42 per cent still work in the field.
Greg Malbeuf worked at St. Joseph's for 10 years. He left the field because of poor wages and working conditions. Photo: Heather McLeod
Pat Hogan, a child-care developer who has been in the field for 25 years, sees the study’s conclusions everywhere in the child-care sector.
“Oh for sure, absolutely,” she says.
Hogan is also the president of the Certification Council of Early Childhood Educators of Nova Scotia. The not-for-profit volunteer organization aims to improve the quality of child care in Nova Scotia by certifying early childhood educators.
“Early childhood educators are very dedicated to what they do, and the parents and children they work with,” says Hogan. “The bottom line is it’s a very low pay, and in order to do the job you need an outside income.”
"People who would really love to be child care workers, that’s why they go into the field,” says Hogan. “They want to do it, and they go in optimistically. But then they realize the wages and leave the field, or go back to school to go into [higher] education.”
Hogan has worked at Dartmouth Daycare Centre, a pre-school head-start program, since 1982. She remains a child-care worker even though she is unhappy with the conditions because she loves the job.
“My partner has a good job that allows me to do what I love and am good at,” she says. “If I was a young person starting out, I couldn’t live making what I do. You have trouble making a good wage in a child-care centre.”
Heather Bradley, a child-care worker for 13 years at St. Joseph’s Early Childhood Education Centre in Bedford, agrees.
“I’m not happy with the wages,” she says. St. Joseph’s is a non-profit organization and the parents’ fees go into wages.
“By the time salaries are paid, there’s not much left over,” she adds, unimpressed by the unavailability of materials and furniture such as tables, chairs, toys, and blocks, at the centre.
Bradley puts in 37.5 hours a week at the daycare, and that’s not to mention the home preparation she does researching ideas on the computer, preparing materials for activities, and working on progress reports for the children.
Her main tasks as a child-care worker include house-keeping chores such as cleaning the bathroom, administrative work on a business level—answering the phone through out the day and showing the centre to perspective customers, and dealing with emergencies if the children get sick. This is on top of nurturing and educating the children each day.
Bradley says she sees people leaving the profession when they get married or have children.
“They just don’t come back,” she says. “Especially if they have another steady income.
Heather Bradley keeps her job because she likes educating young children. Photo: Heather McLeod
When Bradley lived in an apartment on her own, she had a second job in order to have the lifestyle she wanted.
“Otherwise you would have a very limited lifestyle and have to be wise with your spending,” she says. Now she that she lives in a house with her boyfriend, she says she’s OK with making a low income.
She keeps her job because she likes educating young children. But she says she knows single moms trying to live on the salary.
“I see them as extremely frustrated people,” she says.
Back at the Dartmouth Daycare centre, Hogan says the study is nothing new.
"I remember 10 years ago a study saying the same came out," she says. "They pay zoo keepers more to take care of animals then they do for people to take care of children."
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