Early Childhood Education Parents' Council
500 signatures reached
To: New Zealand Government
Put Children First - Stop Harmful ECE Reforms and Improve Standards and Accountability
We call on the Prime Minister, ministers of finance and education and the House of Representatives to immediately halt the regulatory reforms and the funding review, and commit to keeping our kids safe, supported, and learning in high-quality ECE.
- Press pause on all regulatory and policy changes until their effect on children is fully evaluated and parents are properly consulted
- Put children first by assessing how every change will affect them before moving ahead
- Be open about costs — if services receive public money, parents should be able to easily compare fees and understand cost increases.
- Keep teaching standards strong so our kids are taught and cared for by more ECE qualified people, not fewer.
- Introduce annual spot-check inspections of services — so we can trust what’s happening behind closed doors
- Ensure ECE services operate in partnership with parents and we can take part in decisions that affect our children
- Give parents a voice —Require all Government agencies to include our parent representatives on every ECE advisory group and all related consultation on funding and policy.
Join parents, grandparents, caregivers, aunties and uncles across Aotearoa NZ calling on the Government to keep early childhood education safe, high-quality, and focused on our kids.
Why is this important?
The Government is swinging a wrecking ball through early childhood education — slashing essential regulatory requirements and rushing through a wave of harmful changes under urgency.
Every family deserves to know their child is safe, nurtured, and receiving high-quality education the moment they walk through the doors of any licensed early childhood service. But these reforms put the interests of service providers and profit ahead of children — weakening the safeguards that give parents and caregivers trust and peace of mind.
Let’s remind the Prime Minister, ministers of finance and education, the House of Representatives and the world that we don’t cut corners on our kids no matter what. Not here in Aotearoa. Not ever…
What's changing
- Even more leniency for rule-breaking service providers: Enforcement processes will be weakened, and licence downgrades for non-compliance will be reduced.
- Weaker supervision rules: Teachers won’t have to be with children or sit with them while they eat (only in "close proximity"), even though choking is silent and fast.
- Looser sleep checks: Proposed changes will reduce safe monitoring of sleeping tamariki, increasing the risk of tragedy.
- Parents left in the dark: Services will no longer need to prominently display a copy of their licence, the names of staff working there and their qualifications, a copy of the current licensing rules or complaints procedure. Even a fish & chip shop must show a food hygiene grade and this can be checked at a glance — but under these changes ECE services will only need to have digital copies available making it near impossible that parents will know and have easy access to important details.
- Parent and whānau partnership scrapped: Parents will lose the legal right to be involved in decision-making concerning their own child’s learning. And services will no longer be required to share specific evidence of their child’s learning with parents.
- Redefining “a teacher”: Right now, only half the teachers employed in an education and care centre need to have an actual teaching qualification for it to have a licence – and even that rule has loopholes. The government wants to lower the bar further so centres can run with few or no fully ECE qualified teachers, relying instead on people with general “hands-on” experience or still in training. More children will be cared for by unqualified staff paid minimum wage. Fees won’t necessarily drop — they may rise, as funding for qualified teachers is slashed.
- HR standards scrapped: It will no longer be necessary for the Ministry of Education to check that services have proper employment processes in place relevant to the ECE context e.g. role descriptions, induction, and regular appraisal.
- Cultural neglect: Services will no longer be required to acknowledge Māori as tangata whenua or support children's rights to cultural confidence.
That's just a snippet of what’s at stake.
👉 See our article on licensing criteria changes
👉 Follow our Facebook page for updates
👉 See our article on licensing criteria changes
👉 Follow our Facebook page for updates
Sign now and tell the Government:
Put children first ❤️
Stop the harmful ECE reforms — and strengthen safety, quality, and accountability today!
Put children first ❤️
Stop the harmful ECE reforms — and strengthen safety, quality, and accountability today!