ECE Supply: Number and Type of New Services & Closed Services
ANALYSIS
1644 early childhood spaces gone in 2024, as 87 services closed and just 50 opened.
Nationally, Aotearoa lost 1644 early childhood education (ECE) spaces in 2024, as a result of 37 more services closing than opening.
Spaces in education and care centres and spaces for over-2s overall were not changed significantly – or dramatically different from the year before. It was spaces for tamariki younger than 2, and those in homebased services that had declined the most sharply, data obtained by the Office of Early Childhood Education (OECE) from the Ministry of Education showed.
In total, 87 services with 3919 spaces for children, including 2152 for under 2s, closed. Just 50 new services opened, with 2275 spaces between them (797 for under 2s). (Though it’s important to note, we don’t know how many of the spaces were full and how many were “spare” – where centres had capacity for enrolment.)
The OECE’s chief advisor Dr Sarah Alexander says the numbers are not cause for concern.
“Businesses shut down when they don’t have enough customers, can’t manage costs, or owners decide they want to do something different such as retire or put their money into a different venture. So the closure of non-public ECEs is to be expected.”
Of all the services that closed last year, 59% (51) were operated by companies, 21% (18) were run by charity trusts and 13% (11) were owned by incorporated societies.
Meanwhile, 70% of the 50 new services (35) were private businesses, 24% (12) were charities and 6% (3) were incorporated societies.
The majority of the services that closed were education and care services. Six were free kindergartens, 25 were part of a homebased network, one was a Playcentre and four were Te Kōhanga Reo.
When it came to new services, 40 were education and care services, two were free kindergartens, six were part of homebased networks and 2 were Te Kōhanga Reo.
The Ministry’s 2024 annual ECE Census (for the year to June) found there had been a 45% decline in licensed home-based services since 2019.
The most common reason cited for the 2024 closures was “voluntary permanent closure” (66 services).
Eight services closed for financial reasons, five because of mergers, six due to declining rolls and 10 were stripped of their licences by the Ministry because of non-compliance. One service closed when its probationary licence expired.
Some lobbyists in the for-profit part of the sector have claimed that pay parity and regulations are responsible for centre closures, however, Alexander says there’s no evidence to support this premise.
“If this was true, then prudent investors would not be investing in ECE and we wouldn’t see more private ECE services opening than community based ones.”
Half of the services (5) that lost their licence due to regulation breaches were part of the Happy Tots In-home network.
The others were Happy Times Childcare, Mini Me In-Home Childcare, Baby Kingdom (NZ) Limited, Tamariki Garden Early Learning Centre and PAUA Early Childhood 4.
All of the services closed for non-compliance, apart from Baby Kingdom (NZ) Limited, were run by companies. Baby Kingdom (NZ) Limited was operated by an incorporated society.
In 2023, 173 ECE services closed. However, 52 of these were under the ownership of one company: the Rainbow Corner Group (PORSE and Rainbow Corner centres).
This meant that 2024’s closure figure was about in line with the year before.
Alexander says the number of new services established in 2024 may have been affected by Network Management. In September 2024 a law change removed the requirement for service providers to prove an ECE service is needed in a certain area and get approval from the Ministry before proceeding with establishing a service and applying for a licence.
Related article: The business of ECE: All the Services that changed ownership in 2024
Search the full list of services that opened or closed last year in the table below.
