Let’s not follow Australia: A sobering warning for NZ Early Childhood Education
OPINION – 7 February 2026
Diti Hill-Denee, Wendy Lee, and Margaret Stuart
Disturbing stories emerged from the Australian early childhood sector last year including reports of more than a thousand children under four being screened for STD infections because child abusers have moved between centres and across state lines, to take advantage of the poor regulatory environment.
The experience of Australia is a timely reminder to us in NZ Aotearoa of the danger of reducing standards. A year ago, the Ministry for Regulation (recommended making many of the present regulations ‘advisories’ only. In its report on the review of the ECE regulatory system, it cited regulations about door handle heights, water cylinder temperatures and immunisation records as examples of poor rule-making.
The Ministry for Regulation also recommended allowing greater flexibility in ECE workforce qualifications. The Ministry of Education has prepared, or is preparing, advice for Ministers on how this recommendation could be implemented. Yet as noted by the Office of ECE, any further reduction to existing qualification requirements for registered and certificated teachers in ECE services would be harmful as these standards already represent the bare minimum for quality.
Reducing the proportion of fully qualified teachers and increasing flexibility in qualifications is exactly the situation that contributed to the current predicament in Australia. One of the strengths of our ECE workforce in New Zealand is that qualified teachers all complete a degree approved by the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) and are registered with the Teaching Council.
Last year, the Education and Training (Early Childhood Education Reform) Amendment Bill was passed and will come into force on 23 February 2026. The Education and Training Act now establishes a Director of Regulation (ECE), who will be responsible for key regulatory functions – including issuing licences for early childhood services, enforcing compliance, and providing guidance to service providers.
Ministers Stanford and Seymour have also signalled plans to shift all professional standard‑setting functions for initial teacher education and the teaching workforce from the Teaching Council to the Ministry of Education.
In addition, in August 2025, Education Minister Erica Stanford announced a policy shift that will place greater emphasis on literacy and maths, teacher‑directed practice, and the reporting of children’s learning outcomes in ECE services.
Minister Standford announced at the Te Pae Whiriwhiri Mātauranga Kōhungahunga Early Childhood Advisory Committee in December 2025 that she will not be reviewing the uses of Te Whāriki. Since this is not yet official, we need to remain vigilant and make sure it doesn’t happen. Our Early Childhood Education curriculum Te Whāriki, which is cited by the OECD and NAYEC among others as being world-leading, must not be de-valued in any way shape or form under the guise of ‘Modernising Early Childhood Education’.
International researcher, Professor Peter Moss recently cautioned against following Australia’s lead: ”that Australia (or indeed, any other Anglophone country) might be taken as some kind of model for Aotearoa New Zealand, when it is obvious it should be the other way round.”
What happens next is not a technical matter for policy insiders; it is a generational crossroads for Aotearoa. The cumulative impact of these changes, loosening regulation, weakening qualification requirements, shifting professional standards into direct ministerial control, and concentrating regulatory power in a single Director, has the potential to fundamentally reshape ECE away from a public good and towards a low-cost, low-accountability service model.
Te Whāriki and a qualified teaching workforce have been painstakingly built over decades; they are now at real risk of being eroded not by a single dramatic act, but by a series of quiet, technical reforms. We cannot assume that “it will all be fine” or that someone else will safeguard what has been achieved.
Everyone – including teachers, service providers, parents and whānau, community organisations, iwi, and academics – need to pay close attention, ask hard questions, insist on evidence, and speak out wherever public good ECE is being undermined.
We believe that the foundation of our education system – the right of every child to high‑quality, publicly accountable early childhood education – must not be traded away for short‑term savings or political ideology. This is the moment to stand together, to be vigilant, and to defend with courage and clarity the kind of early childhood system we want our mokopuna, and their children after them, to inherit.
What can you do, right now?
If you’re concerned about the direction of early childhood education, there is something you can do.
A parent‑led petition, Put Children First – Improve ECE Safety, Quality, and Accountability, is calling for more ECE qualified teachers (not less) and annual spot‑check inspections so families can have real confidence in what’s happening behind closed doors.
Adding your name takes about ten seconds: https://our.actionstation.org.nz/p/put-children-first
Small actions add up. This is one way to help protect the future of ECE in Aotearoa.
