Late in December 2024, the Ministry for Regulation released its regulatory review of the early childhood education sector. This six-month review was the first by the newly minted ministry, which is dedicated to removing red tape and cutting business costs.
No one likes red tape. And cutting business costs is a good thing, right? The answer is clearly yes, but not when cutting costs comes at the expense of children’s learning and wellbeing.
This is exactly what is at stake now that the 15 recommendations in the review report have gone to Cabinet with Minister for Regulation David Seymour seeking acceptance of all 15 recommendations without further input from the sector.
Public consultation on the review occurred between July and August 2024 and attracted about 2,300 responses. Many welcomed the review and its promise to improve clarity between regulatory agencies and streamline processes; problems in these areas have been well established.
However, several of the recommendations in the review report would be highly damaging if implemented, and they’ve caused great concern in the broad early childhood community.
One key problem is that the report framed the provision of these services solely in terms of free market provision. But early childhood education services are not and should never be considered merely a business proposition.
There are lifetime educational, economic, and social benefits from high-quality early childhood education. Benefits for not only children and their families but society in general, making it a public good, like our schools.
High quality early childhood education is now considered so important that its provision is included in the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals framework. Unicef calls it a “global priority”. This reflects current neuroscientific evidence that high-quality education and care experiences in the early years are the foundations for success in life.
Yet the Ministry for Regulation’s recommendations put business interests above educational, wellbeing, and human rights values. In particular, two of the recommendations—namely, watering down teacher qualification requirements and early childhood education licensing criteria—would undermine the best interests of children.
A fundamental purpose of regulations is to protect children from harm and ensure they thrive by having their wellbeing, growth, and learning supported in their early childhood education centres.
With 71 percent of under five-year-olds in early childhood education, parents also need to be reassured that regulations help ensure their children are safe, thriving, and building the foundations for success in life, at school, and beyond.
The first New Zealand childcare regulations, introduced in 1960, were a direct response to a 1958 scandal where children were discovered in backyard care with broken bones and suffering serious neglect. It led Mabel Howard, then MP for Christchurch East, to rise in the House the next day and declare there would be childcare regulations. These regulations introduced the idea of licences tied to teaching qualifications. Since then, Aotearoa New Zealand has been on a policy trajectory towards making fully qualified staff the norm across all early childhood education services, earning a reputation as a leader in high-quality early childhood policy and practice.
It is therefore of gravest concern that one of the recommendations proposes a shift away from regulating to ensure these centres have qualified teachers “to allow greater flexibility in workforce qualifications”.
Longitudinal research since the 1970s is clear that qualified teachers in these settings are crucial for children’s learning and wellbeing. Qualified staff are one of three factors that, together with teacher-child ratios and group size, form the “iron triangle” of best practice. They affect both adult and child behaviour with fewer positive interactions and less advancement in development associated with lower staff qualifications and larger group sizes.
The proposal to remove licensing criteria that support curriculum standards is also very worrying as these specify key practices for quality early childhood provision. They address the nature of interactions children should experience, the kinds of knowledge educators should hold, how the curriculum should support children’s cultures and identities (including identities as a learner), and how children’s interests should be promoted jointly by parents and educators.
Licensing criteria about parents’ rights to contribute to early childhood education centre practices and policy are also identified for removal, as are criteria about aspects of annual planning and budgeting, human resource management, and service philosophy. These are all crucial accountability aspects of a service’s operations that need to remain requirements that every service must follow.
Although the changes may reduce compliance costs for early childhood education businesses, it will be at the expense of the short- and long-term wellbeing of children and our society.
This article was originally published on Newsroom.
Carmen Dalli is a professor of Early Childhood Studies and Jenny Ritchie is a professor in the School of Education at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, and Linda Mitchell is a professor in education at the University of Waikato.