“I’ve been in the field of early childhood education for nearly 10 years. For the first eight I worked for a for-profit centre that felt it was appropriate to pay me minimum wage – and the worst thing about it is I accepted that and thought it was normal. Not only was the pay low, but the quality of care we were expected to provide was mediocre – sadly it took me having a child of my own to realize that this was not the kind of centre I wanted to be a part of if I wanted to be seen as a professional in our field.
During my search for a new job I came across a lot of low paying offers and I knew I was better than that and so I stayed where I was comfortable until I found something suitable. Sadly it’s the reality a lot of RECEs face in our field though as we are not paid a professional wage despite the fact that we have post secondary education, are part of a professional college, and work continuously to update our knowledge through professional development. I was fortunate enough to finally land a job at an excellent non-profit organization that pays well, treats their employees as professionals, and goes above and beyond to provide high quality care, and have been here for almost two years now.
Not everyone is as lucky as me though. We need to rise up, take a stand, and show the government and the public our worth. If there were more funding in place and money available to centres maybe more would be able to pay their educators a professional wage! Too many RECEs are choosing to leave the field at a time when we need to stand united! It’s time to take action.”
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