Operating at the legal staffing ratios places children at risk
I’m hearing stories of a boom in planning for and
New figures show the early childhood education sector remained largely
New Zealand’s new Director of Regulation (ECE) position remains without a permanent appointee, even though legislation requires the role to be in place from 23 February 2026.
The Education and Training (Early Childhood Education Reform) Amendment Bill, passed on 26 November 2025, created the Director of Regulation as an independent statutory position.
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Anyone thinking about getting a job in ECE working in ECE or thinking about moving to a different service will find clear, practical information in this article about pay rates, employment conditions, and what to expect in different roles. It explains everything from starting salaries and pay‑step calculations to workplace rights, benefits, and how to recognise a supportive, professional environment.
Discover the key organisations and sector groups shaping early childhood education in New Zealand – who they are, what they do, and how they influence the services, policies, and people at the heart of the ECE sector.
Getting a job. How can my ECE qualification help me to get a job? With an early childhood teaching qualification you may find yourself attractive
Conflict of Interest.
A conflict of interest is when you, someone you are close to, employed by, or are personally friendly with may stand to benefit or gain in some way from a decision made at a meeting or within the service.
The board/committee, management, families and all involved in the early childhood service need to be confident that
Around 8% of qualified ECE workforce made up of migrants on Accredited Employer Work Visas
ANALYSIS. July 17, 2025.
New Zealand’s early childhood education sector has become so reliant on migrant labour that around 8% of the qualified workforce is in the country on a temporary work visa – that’s nearly twice as many migrant teachers wor
The titles, authors and abstracts for papers published in the NZ Research in Early Childhood Education Journal, Volume 6, 2003 are shown below.
To view any paper, scroll to the end of this page for copies.
The Growth of an Early Childhood Research Culture: Implications for Future Directions in Early Childhood Research
Joy Cu
OPINION/ANALYSIS – October 2, 2025
A gas leak from a fridge at an Auckland early childhood centre resulted in three teachers being taken to hospital.
The incident, which occurred on October 14, 2024 at an Auckland early childhood centre, was widely reported by mainstream media at the time.
But how it happened has never been publicly revealed until now.
This article looks at what happened, the Ministry of Education and Worksafe findings, and questions why teachers were cleaning a fridge, adult-child ratios, and what training the teachers had been given on fridge cleaning to prevent such an incident.
Political promises for ECE 2020. Labour Implement the 10-year Early Learning Action Plan. Scrap the decile system and implement the Equity Index for ECE services,
A close look at how well the theories of Pikler and Gerber can be merged with Te Whariki and the models of infant care and education in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Concepts such as ‘self-soothing’ (allowing babies to settle by themselves) and leaving babies to develop in their own time rather than pushing them to meet milestones cause much debate among parents and early childhood educators.
These debates include such things as whether babies should be allowed to cry it out and whether parents or educators should help children to achieve milestones such as sitting by propping them up.
One proponent of allowing a child to develop at their own pace is Emmi Pikler, a Hungarian paediatrician who worked with children aged from birth to six in her role as Director of the Loczy Orphanage from 1946 until her death in 1979.
Pikler believed that infants’ emotional well-being was paramount, and she restructured then entire staff to ensure that all those working at the orphanage not only met the children’s physical needs, but also would ‘love’ these unwanted children and attend to them with consistent and thoughtful care.
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