Respect and value ECE teachers - stop Evolve’s exploitative contracts!

Teachers in one of our biggest early childhood corporations are fighting a new contract that could cut their guaranteed hours and income by 50%. Please stand up and support them!

In one of the worst examples of how broken New Zealand’s early childhood education system is, Evolve Education – which continued to get full government funding through the Covid-19 lockdown and got millions in wage subsidies – is asking hundreds of teachers to sign new contracts guaranteeing them just 20 hours of work a week.

What’s worse, Evolve would require them to be available for a further 20 hours a week - with no compensation for this availability and no chance to earn an income elsewhere. This is unfair and unlawful

Evolve owns Lollipops, Active Explorers, Learning Adventures, Pascals, Little Earth, Little Lights and Little Wonders. This contract would impact on the quality of teaching and consistency of relationships with thousands of young children.

Many teachers in Evolve are refusing to sign the contracts – but we need your support. We want to stop this now before it leads to further diminishing of quality teaching and working conditions across the whole ECE sector.

We are taking a stand to protect the quality of teaching and learning for children, and to protect basic working conditions for all ECE teachers. And we’re angry that in spite of increased Government funding for ECE services in May’s Budget, there’s still a pay gap of more than 24% between ECE teachers and our colleagues in kindergarten and schools.

Sign this petition asking the Government to step in urgently to stop the new Evolve contracts and to change the system to protect children and teachers everywhere.