Equity Index Assessment

Description

In July this year, the Ministry of Education will be collecting data from private ECE services to assess the Equity Index which is used to calculate Equity Funding. It is important that services complete the details for the Equity Index to ensure that they do not miss out on funding that may be available.

Equity funding is a government initiative to reduce educational disparities between different groups, reduce barriers to participation for groups underrepresented in ECE, and support ECE services to raise their children’s level of educational achievement.

Equity Funding is targeted to eligible licensed and/or chartered, community based early childhood services that:

• provide education and care to children from low socio-economic communities;
• may have significant numbers of children with special education needs or who are from non-English speaking backgrounds;
• provide early childhood education in a language and culture other than English; and/or
• are in isolated areas.

What is the Equity Index?

Eligibility for components A and B of Equity Funding is based on the early childhood Equity Index (EQI). This index measures the extent to which an early childhood service draws children from low socio-economic communities.

A service’s EQI is assessed from its children’s addresses and information taken from the New Zealand Census of Population and Dwellings (the Census) conducted by Statistics New Zealand every five years. The Census was carried out in March 2006 and an EQI reassessment will take place this year using the census data and newly collected children’s addresses. This will ensure that the EQI is based on the most up-to-date information available.

Isolation Index and Language Attestation components of Equity Funding

Services that are eligible to receive the language component (C) of Equity Funding will have to attest to meeting the requirements. The isolation index (component D) which is based on a services relative isolation, will also be using Census 2006 data.

When will the collection for the EQI assessment take place?

Children’s addresses will be collected from private early childhood services (or in some case their association or umbrella organisation). Here are the key dates:

Mail out of address forms	20 May 2011
Collection week	13-19June 2011
Addresses and declarations forms due to the Ministry	8 July 2011
The new EQI will be paid	On 1 November 2011 but effective from 1 July 2011.

If you don't respond, you won't receive funding that you may be entitled to

It is important for the accuracy of the EQI that as many services as possible return their children’s address information. The EQI is calculated by ranking services based on a number of socio-economic factors using the Census data and the small areas that the services draw their children from (meshblocks).

Services receive equity funding if they are ranked in the lowest 40 percent of all services (an EQI of 1-4). The thresholds based on the community-based services distribution are already in place so there is no ranking required

The children’s address data collected is also used in our ECE network analysis. We look into distances between services and where children live and try to establish if there are enough services in different areas. It is also used for other analysis, such as identifying the likely socio-economic status of children. The higher the response rate from services the more useful this analysis will be.

Collection packs

A collection pack was posted out to all management contacts on 20th May 2011.

Downloads

There are several downloads available on this page.  The spreadsheet “EQI Electronic Children’s Address Form.xls” is available to download. This is if services wish to complete an electronic return but don’t have a student management system.

The spreadsheet can be completed following the instructions in the collection pack and emailed to eqi.collection@minedu.govt.nz.

Note that the checklist/declaration form and printed table of children’s addresses will still need to be returned to the Ministry.

A copy of the mailing documents – instructions, children’s address form (A3), frequently asked questions (FAQs) and confidentiality procedures – are also available as downloads:

EQI Download Forms
EQI Electronic Children’s Address Form [MS Excel 27KB]
EQI Instructions [MS Word 49KB]
EQI Children’s Address Form (A3) [MS Word 56KB]
EQI Frequently Asked Questions [MS Word 35KB]
EQI Confidentiality Procedures [MS Word 30KB]
EQI Checklist/Declaration [MS Word 26.5KB]