ECE deserts: Limited choice of childcare and early education for families in many parts of Aotearoa
NEWS/ANALYSIS — _______ January 2026
In some New Zealand towns families have just one option for full day ECE for under 2-year-olds, while in other parts of the country they don’t have access to certain kinds of ECE (including free kindergarten, Playcentre or kaupapa Māori services) at all.
Near the end of last year, the Office of Early Childhood engaged in a project to analyse and map ECE services across Aotearoa to reveal ECE “deserts” (large areas where ECE choices are significantly limited).
The OECE’s Chief Advisor, Dr Sarah Alexander, says statistics show that many families have limited choice when it comes to the ECE service their child attends.
We believe a diverse range of services is essential to meet the varying needs of parents and caregivers – and to ensure children can access ECE that suits their individual personality and interests.
We’ve found that ECE provision varies hugely in different regions and territorial authorities.
For example, there are no kaupapa Māori in much of the South Island. Similarly, Pacific Island language nests are predominantly located in main centres.
Playcentres are relatively common in Tasman and on the West Coast, making up about one out of five services in these regions. In Auckland, however, Playcentres make up a much smaller proportion of the total ECE sector (accounting for one in twenty services).
Three districts – Ruapehu, Waitake and Mackenzie – don’t have any Playcentres.
There are similar gaps in the provision of free kindergartens. The Waitomo, Hurunui and Kaikoura districts don’t have any free kindergartens. Meanwhile, in Wellington and Southland about a quarter of all ECE services are part of the free kindergarten network.
There are some stark contrasts in ECE ownership too. Greater Auckland is dominated by for-profit services (59% privately owned), while in Gisborne services are overwhelmingly (86%) community-based.
Auckland’s Upper Harbour local board area has the highest proportion of private services in the country (80%). Interestingly, its education and care centres have the third lowest occupancy rate in Auckland and its kindergartens have the third highest occupancy rates in the super city. Children in Upper Harbour on average attend ECE for the longest amount of time per week, at 29.3 hours.
A single provider, Best Start, has a significant stake in ECE in Christchurch, operating 10% of all services in the city.
In the OECE’s view, all of this data taken together illustrates why leaving ECE provision up to the free market is problematic.
When ECE is viewed as a commercial industry, rather than a public good, business people will be drawn to setting up services in locations that they believe will be lucrative.
The OECE expects that the removal of network management (where operators have had to get approval from the Ministry of Education before opening a service in a particular location to avoid oversaturation) will not improve this situation and will worsen it.
When announcing the removal of network management associate minister for education David Seymour said: “Providers and parents are best placed to decide where early learning services should be established. Where there’s demand from parents, providers will follow”.
He alleged that the current rules around network approval gave the government the right to decide where services should be and made setting up news services complicated.
“This gets in the way of early childhood professionals delivering effective, affordable and accessible services to parents and their children,” Seymour added.
But, in our view, the fact that having choice over which ECE service to enrol your child in is a postcode lottery indicates that there is a need for truly public ECE services to be established across the motu.
We’d like to see more consultation with parents and caregivers about what kinds of ECE services they would like their children to attend and what their whānau’s childcare and educational needs are.
The Ministry of Regulation did not consult with parents on its specific recommendations for changes to the ECE licensing criteria and regulatory system. The terms of reference for the current ECE funding review also notes that it would have been beneficial for at least one parent or caregiver representative to be included on the advisory board for the review, but none were selected.
