Policies and legislation regarding early childhood education in New Zealand

One of the National government’s goals over the past eight years has been to increase children’s ‘participation in early childhood education’.  The number of children attending an early childhood facility has increased steadily from 90% attendance in 2000 to 96.2% in 2015 (Ministry of Education, 2016).  The total number of hours children spend at their centres has also increased from an average of 13.5 per week in 2007 to 20.7 per week in 2014.  The government have achieved this goal by continuing to provide the 20 hours subsidised childcare for all children between the ages of three and five; subsidising hourly fees for all early childhood education centres; as well as subsidising the building of new centres.  The goal is to have 98% of all children under the age of five having attended an early childhood education facility before school.  

Figure 1.1 Graph showing increase in early childhood participation between 2009 and 2016.

In 2011, the law regarding the total number of children allowed at a centre at one time, was changed from 50 children per session, to allowing centres to enroll as many as 150 children at a time (Blaikie, The rise and rise of corporate childcare, 2014).  Blaikie (2014) goes on to say that in a survey conducted, teachers in these large centres reported feeling overworked, underpaid and seen as nothing more than glorified babysitters due to the lack of time and manpower for quality one on one interactions with the children.  

Teacher qualifications and ratios of adults to children are other important considerations to assess the quality of education New Zealand’s children are receiving.  The current government policy states that only 50% of the team members are required to be qualified teachers (Ministry of Education, 2016).  Before 2008, the labour government had put a policy in place that insisted that all adults in early childhood education centres needed to be qualified by the year 2012 (Blaikie, The rise and rise of corporate childcare, 2014).  Unfortunately, the national government took this policy away as soon as they gained power and now only 50% of team member are required to be qualified.  This was a huge setback for the early childhood teaching profession which “undermined and devalued early childhood teaching as a profession” (Betts, 2014, p. 23).  Personally I think this is a disgrace and one that should be rectified immediately to 100% qualified teachers educating our children.  I think a person has to ask just one question of our government and that is “Would you want a qualified or unqualified person teaching your child?”  As far as ratios are concerned, the current policy is: for children over the age of two, a facility is required to have one adult for the first six children and two adults for 20 children.  For children under the age of two, one adult is required for every five children.  For a more detailed chart on ratios, please visit Ratio chart

A big concern that should be discussed is about the Ministry’s complaints policy.  Complaints can be made to the Ministry of Education about an early childhood provider or teacher, however, the Ministry will only deal with the complaint if the teacher concerned is qualified (Blaikie, The rise and rise of corporate childcare, 2014).  This leaves a huge gap for unqualified staff members to teach unchecked and unmonitored by anyone, other than their centre.  Should a problem arise with that staff member, who are they accountable to if the Ministry is not responsible?  The answer is that there is no one at present and therefore these untrained staff members are literally falling through the cracks as they are not accountable to any governing body.

History of early childhood education in New Zealand

In 1889 the first Kindergarten was established in Dunedin, New Zealand to cater for children from financially poor families whose parents were unable to care for them whilst they went to work (McLachlan, 2011).  Other Kindergartens and Early Childhood Education centers were set up around the country in the early 1900’s as the need for them increased.   More informal arrangements were common as ‘stay at home mothers’ looked after children of friends who needed to work.  Kindergartens were owned by the government who took responsibility for the teachers’ salaries as well as providing subsidies to centers so that children could attend at no cost to their parents (New Zealand Kindergartens Inc, 2009).  In the 1940’s the first government subsidized nursery play centers were set up and run by parents and working class families (McLachlan, 2011).  After the war in the 1950’s a wide range of centers emerged, such as full day childcare and education facilities, Montessori and Steiner kindergartens, and Māori and Pasifika language nests.

Figure 1: First NZ Kindergarten in Dunedin 

In the 1980’s the labour party moved the governance of early childhood education from the welfare department to the education department to join the kindergarten associations (McLachlan, 2011).  This meant that early childhood education was now the responsibility of the Ministry of Education which was a positive step towards, not only kindergartens, but all early childhood facilities being of a higher standard.  There was a large shift in thinking around this time as more children were encouraged to attend some form of pre-school educational facility (May, 2002).    

In 1983 the labour party introduced neo-liberalism to New Zealand which encouraged a large shift in social thinking from left winged liberal thinking, valuing equal opportunities for all and education for the public good, to a right winged conservative view which valued conformity, standardization, and said that “having children was a personal choice and educating them was a private responsibility” (McLachlan, 2011, p. 37).  The 90’s saw the development of more private centers than ever before.  Early childhood education was seen as big business and therefore big money and as a result corporatization of the sector increased substantially in dominance  (Aitken & Kennedy, 2007).  According to Betts (2014), in 2008, 36% of children were enrolled in privately owned centers.  By 2009, the figure had risen to 60%.

In 2007 the labour party introduced ‘20 hours free’ for three to five year olds in order to assist mothers who wanted the option of going back to work part time.  Initially this was only offered to not-for-profit organisations however through intense pressure from for-profit organisations, they extended it to these organisations too (Blaikie, 2014).  In 2008 the national party took power and shifted focus to young children’s literacy and numeracy achievement.  This is classified as ‘performance based curriculum’ rather than a ‘competence based curriculum’ (McLachlan, 2011).  This ‘performance based curriculum’ is in line with a neo-liberal approach to education and focuses on formal testing and standardization where New Zealand has, in the past, had a more ‘competence based curriculum’ focused on child-led early childhood education with Te Whāriki guiding the way.  According to McLachlan (2008) studies have shown that children who are educated using a ‘competence based curriculum’ “have better long-term outcomes in terms of school achievement, behavior, social competence and employment” (p. 39).  

Introduction

This blog will be discussing the corporatisation of New Zealand’s early childhood education facilities.  I am interested in this topic as I know relatively little about the subject and would like to find out more about an issue that could possibly have a large impact on the future of Aoteoroa’s early childhood education system. 

According to their website, ‘BestStart Educare’, who own Edukids, Early Years, Montessori, First Steps, and ABC, among others, presently own a total of 253 centers across New Zealand (BestStart Educare, 2015).  Furthermore in 2015, ‘Evolve Education’, the new publicly listed Early Childhood Education Company, bought up over 100 early childhood education providers across the country (Evolve Education Group, 2015).  They currently own four percent of the market share including Lollipops, Porse and Au Pair Link and are wanting to acquire at least another 15 centers by the end of April 2016.  ‘Kindercare’ is another corporate giant who, according to their website, currently own 42 early childhood education centers across New Zealand (Kindercare;, 2014). 

With the recent upsurge in large corporations buying up New Zealand’s early childhood centers, I would like to find out the advantages and disadvantages of this trend.  I wonder if there is an impact on such aspects such as the quality of education and care provided to the children, and teacher’s roles in the centers, focusing on the value of their early childhood education qualifications.