In the past two years early childhood education (ECE) has been subjected to a raft of changes - and the change continues. Critically the regulatory review in 2024, resulted in changing the purpose of ECE regulations in legislation. It tilted the purpose more towards meeting labour market demands and supporting business to provide services rather than regulations primarily being about well-being and optimal learning conditions for young children.

A second review in 2025, picked up on the theme. The funding review is currently underway, looking to reduce the costs for service providers and parents. While a reasonable goal, the emphasis appears to be on reducing quality factors such as the number of staff with qualifications and the type of qualification held. Reducing costs to parents, it seems, could be achieved by employing lesser qualified staff rather than the government capping the amount parents should pay each week for example. After 35 plus years of advocacy for high-quality ECE to ensure the interests of tamariki and whānau shape government policy, our achievements are unravelling.

The mantra around ECE funding is that the system is ‘broken’ - part of the rationale for the review. However, the sector has identified the problem as being not enough funding to services and the rules around the receipt and use of funding are confusing and complex. There are straightforward solutions to address these issues without compromising high-quality or current policy settings.

Community-based ECE services and teachers/kaiako were not invited to be part of the government’s funding review group. In December last year, representative organisations came together to identify what works well, what needs to change and how we can move forward in the interests of our youngest citizens. They looked at what is happening in other countries and proposed solutions to the funding review team.

Read Linda Mitchell and Aisling Gallagher’s research on what is happening in other countries.

Read the letter to government’s funding review group from community-based ECE services

In the May budget, the government has the opportunity to meet the call from the sector to increase funding, and to ensure funding goes to support teaching and learning, and provide access to high-quality services.

Public funding to ECE is an investment worth making: it contributes directly to achieving the government’s broader aims for education and provides significant returns to the government and to our society. We need to ensure those benefits are realised through the provision of high quality early childhood education. There is simply no value in government minimising or ‘trading off’ quality standards – to do so is a lost opportunity to enhance educational outcomes for every child and for Aotearoa, and for tamariki to thrive.