ECE Deserts: Limited Choice of Early Childhood Services for Families in Many Parts of Aotearoa
NEWS/ANALYSIS – 11 February 2026
In some New Zealand towns families have just one option for full day early childhood education care for under 2-year-olds, while in other parts of the country they don’t have access to certain kinds of early childhood services (including free kindergarten, Playcentre or kaupapa Māori services) at all.
The OECE’s Chief Advisor, Dr Sarah Alexander, says the data shows that many families face limited choice when selecting an ECE service for their child.
“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.”
Toward the end of last year, the Office of Early Childhood Education undertook a project to analyse and map early childhood services across Aotearoa, identifying ECE “deserts” (large areas where families have significantly limited options). This work drew principally on data from the Ministry’s early childhood services directory, which is updated regularly throughout the year and we also referred to 2024 census data on occupancy and attendance rates. The Ministry has now released the 2025 census results for early childhood services (the 2025 ECE census week was 23–29 June), and a preliminary check of this data against our September/October analysis suggests no meaningful change.
We’ve found that ECE provision varies hugely in different regions and territorial authorities.
For example, Pacific Island language nests are predominantly located in main centres. Much of the South Island has no kaupapa Māori services at all – only 23 Kōhanga Reo operate there, out of 412 nationally according to 2025 Census data).
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). Some districts like Ruapehu, Waimate, 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 also striking regional differences in ECE ownership. Greater Auckland is dominated by for‑profit services, with 59% privately owned, while in Gisborne services are overwhelmingly community‑based at 86%.
Census data shows no statistically significant change from 2024 to 2025. In Greater Auckland, the number of community‑based services fell by 13, while private services increased by two. In Gisborne, community‑based services increased by one, with no change in the number of private services.
Auckland’s Upper Harbour local board area has the highest proportion of private services in the country (68 private and 16 community – 81% private in 2024 and this remained unchanged in 2025). 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 hours. Nationally, the average is 23 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, this data collectively highlights why leaving ECE provision to the free market is problematic.
When ECE is viewed as a commercial industry, rather than a public good, providers are naturally drawn to locations they believe will be financially rewarding or make the most money. As a result, service availability ends up reflecting business incentives rather than providing real choice for families.
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 prevent oversupply) will not improve this situation and is likely to make it worse.
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 argued that the existing network approval rules gave the government too much control over where services could open and made establishing new services unnecessarily complicated.
“This gets in the way of early childhood professionals delivering effective, affordable and accessible services to parents and their children,” Seymour added.
However, in our view, the fact that access to ECE options is effectively a postcode lottery shows the need for genuinely public ECE services to be established across the motu.
We would also like to see much stronger consultation with parents and caregivers about the kinds of ECE services they want for their children as well as the wishes of their whānau – for example, preferred hours of care, language immersion, or parent‑education opportunities.
Developing a well‑informed understanding of what families prioritise when real choice is available is essential. Only then can we build a diverse ECE landscape that offers genuine options, rather than simply whatever happens to be available in a family’s postcode.
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