The 13 Big Changes the Government Has Made to ECE
NEWS/ANALYSIS – 19 March 2026
The National-Act-NZ First Coalition Government took office in November 2023. Erica Stanford became Minister of Education, while David Seymour was appointed Minister for Regulation and Associate Minister of Education, with responsibility for partnership schools.
In early 2024, Seymour was also given the early childhood education (ECE) portfolio. Shortly afterwards, he announced that ECE would be the first sector reviewed by the newly established Ministry for Regulation.
Several “quick wins” were introduced even before the Ministry had begun its formal review. Two of the most significant early moves were removing network management (which had required providers to demonstrate community need before opening a new service) and easing qualification requirements for home‑based educators.
Other changes have been made outside the Ministry for Regulation’s recommendations, including altering the teacher pay‑parity rules and making plans to shift all ECE regulatory functions out of the Ministry of Education.
Further reforms are already underway or scheduled to take effect before the November 2026 general election.
The Government’s stated goal is to “modernise” ECE by cutting red tape and reducing compliance costs.
Ministers argue this will help services deliver safe, high‑quality education and care, and improve access and choice for families by making it easier for new services to open and existing ones to operate.
At the same time, the Government has begun repositioning ECE more explicitly as childcare that supports parent workforce participation – a shift it has not attempted, or even suggested, for the school sector.
“Thirteen reforms, one sector transformed – but is ECE now stronger, or more fragile?”
1. Enabling Parents to be in Paid Work has been Enshrined in Law as a Core Purpose of ECE
Regulation
Supporting parents’ participation in paid work has been made a primary statutory purpose of ECE. This changes how policy, regulation, and compliance decisions are made, requiring regulators to balance children’s safety, wellbeing, and educational quality against the need for service continuity and support for working parents.
Funding
A funding review is underway. This is partly to ensure government spending on ECE aligns with the new goal of supporting parents to participate in the workforce. The review cannot recommend additional funding.
2. ECE Regulation Enforcement and Licensing Is Being Shifted from the Ministry of Education to ERO
The Government intends to move all ECE licensing and regulatory enforcement functions with the Director of Regulation to the Education Review Office (ERO), which will also oversee private schools and hostels, while public schools and tertiary education remain under the Ministry of Education. The change is designed to distance ECE from the school sector, which will continue to have its regulatory, policy, and funding functions housed within the Ministry.
This shift has three further major implications:
- The ECE system becomes split across agencies
Regulatory powers will move to ERO, while policy, funding, curriculum and regulation writing responsibilities remain with the Ministry of Education. This divides core functions and weakens alignment, making it harder to maintain a coordinated approach to quality, funding, policy, curriculum, and regulation. - ERO will hold regulatory and quality‑assurance responsibilities, roles traditionally kept separate for sound reasons
ERO will be responsible for monitoring and enforcing regulatory compliance as well as evaluating how well services support children’s learning. These functions are distinct, and combining them raises concerns about reduced independence and the risk that regulatory enforcement could overshadow ERO’s evaluative and quality‑assurance work. - The shift is expected to benefit larger multi‑site ECE service providers
Larger multi‑site providers are better positioned to absorb regulatory change and may experience less direct contact with the regulator. In contrast, smaller and standalone services face greater uncertainty. ERO already operates under significant resourcing pressures and, in recent years, has stopped reviewing every individual service within mid‑ to large‑sized organisations. As a result, providers with only one or a small number of services are subject to comparatively higher scrutiny, heavier administrative demands, and more frequent engagement with ERO – a situation many already view as inequitable and one that could worsen after the shift.
3. Consequences for Non‑Compliance Have Been Softened
The new graduated‑enforcement process reduces the likelihood that serious non‑compliance will lead to a licence change. It also lowers the likelihood of any action being taken at all, as the legislation states that the Director of Regulation may – not must – use the tools available.
Under this approach, the regulator may choose one or more of the following actions instead of downgrading, suspending, or cancelling a licence, or issuing a written direction, even when there is an immediate health and safety risk that can be fixed within 10 days:
- making a record of the non‑compliance
- issuing a formal warning
- requiring the provider to employ specialist support
- requiring the provider to prepare a plan for improvement
4. Licensing Criteria Have Been Reduced, Merged, Re-worded, and Renumbered
The number of licensing criteria has been reduced, and many of the remaining criteria have been reworded. Some criteria have been combined into longer, less accessible requirements, while others have been merged from unrelated sections, making their structure harder to follow.
Services must now update their policies, documentation, and internal systems to reflect the newly renumbered criteria for their service type. This has created additional administrative work for providers, staff, and management committees. No actual benefits to providers or to children are apparent.
5. Greater Use of Unqualified Adults Is Now Allowed Without Funding Consequences
Centres are no longer required to attempt to find a certificated teacher to cover staff leave or vacancies in order to retain certificated‑teacher funding. As a result, unqualified adults can now be placed in certificated‑teacher roles for up to 80 hours per funding period without financial penalty. This reduces children’s access to trained and certificated teachers and weakens professional standards across the sector.
6. Teacher Pay Expectations Under the Pay Parity Funding Scheme Have Been Lowered
Centres that opt into the higher pay‑parity funding rates are no longer required to recognise higher qualifications or prior experience when hiring new teachers.
Non‑permanently employed teachers have also been removed from the pay‑parity scales and can now be paid as little as the minimum adult wage.
Salary‑attestation rates have not been increased to keep pace with the pay of certificated teachers in kindergartens and schools. As a result, progress toward pay parity made before the National–ACT–NZ First Government took office has been eroded.
These changes reduce staffing costs for centres while allowing them to retain higher government funding. However, they also weaken incentives to employ qualified and experienced teachers and have lowered pay protections across the ECE workforce.
7. The Pay Equity Claim for Early Childhood Teachers Has Been Stopped
The Government has ended NZEI’s long‑running pay equity claim, following changes to the Equal Pay Act that removed the legal pathway for the claim. This halts progress toward pay equity for those working in ECE, a predominantly female workforce.
8. The Requirement for the ‘Person Responsible’ to Be a Fully Certificated Teacher Has Been Removed
Services can place beginner teachers (who do not yet hold a full practising certificate) in charge of supervising children and staff. This increases pressure on inexperienced teachers and raises risks for children’s safety, wellbeing, and the quality of education provided.
9. Qualification Requirements for Home‑Based Educators Have Been Reduced
The requirement for 60% of home‑based educators to hold a Level 4 qualification (rising to 80% in 2025) has been removed. Educators now only need to begin studying within six months of starting work with their current provider.
These changes reduce incentives for educators to gain at least a Level 4 ECE qualification, weaken career pathways, and may undermine parent confidence in the educational quality of home‑based early education.
10. Teacher Qualification Requirements Are Set to Become More Flexible and Lower, and the “Person Responsible” Role Will Be Split
Work is underway to develop policy that would implement the Ministry for Regulation’s recommendations to create greater flexibility in early childhood workforce qualification requirements and redefine the “person responsible” role.
Proposals under consideration include:
- redefining who counts as a “qualified teacher”
- reducing or waiving qualification requirements in rural areas
- reducing or waiving qualification requirements for services serving disadvantaged children
- reducing or waiving qualification requirements for services serving Māori, and Pacific children
- linking qualification requirements to enrolment numbers rather than the service’s licensed capacity (this will affect safe‑supervision ratios)
- reducing the 50% ECE‑qualified‑teacher requirement for centres to hold a licence
- reducing qualification requirements for home‑based educators and adults counted in Playcentre ratios
- splitting the “person responsible” role into:
- a service manager who must know the regulations and be on site but does not need to be a qualified teacher
- a qualified, certificated teacher (or maybe only a qualified teacher who is not registered and certificated) responsible for programme implementation and providing staff with professional support
11. The Requirement to View Immunisation Certificates and Keep an Immunisation Register Has Been Revoked
The Government has revoked the Health (Immunisation) Regulations 1995, removing a long‑standing, family‑friendly process that helped protect infants and young children in early childhood settings.
Previously, centres were required to view an immunisation certificate at enrolment or when a child reached 15 months – a simple reminder for parents and a subtle way of signalling the importance of vaccination when children enter a group‑care environment with many adults and children from other households.
This step also created a natural pause point for parents to reflect on their child’s health needs and immunisation status before joining a busy ECE setting where communicable diseases spread more easily.
Removing the requirement takes away a practical tool that helped services meet their obligation to take all reasonably practicable steps to prevent the spread of communicable diseases. Both parents and services have now lost a straightforward mechanism that previously supported informed decision‑making and provided an additional layer of protection for children.
12. Network Management Regulation Has Been Removed
The requirement for prospective providers to obtain network approval before opening a new service has been removed. Network approval was designed to address both oversupply and undersupply by ensuring new services aligned with community needs.
Without it, new services must be approved and funded (if they meet regulatory requirements) even in areas that already have more than enough provision, while shortages in other areas remain unresolved.
Evidence that network approval helped providers adjust their proposals to better reflect local needs was not considered in the Government’s decision. The system now has fewer tools to support equitable access, strategic planning, and sustainable provision across communities.
13. A Director of Regulation Position Has Been Created
A new, statutorily independent Director of Regulation has been established within the Ministry of Education. This places significant regulatory authority in the hands of a single individual, who may delegate powers to others inside or outside the public service. The full costs of establishing and maintaining this new role – including salary and associated expenses – have not yet been publicly disclosed.
ECE: Reformed for the Better – or for the Worse?
You’ve now seen the 13 major changes the Government has made or is planning to make to ECE. Each change has its own implications, but they also interact and compound one another.
We’d now love to hear your perspective.
- Which changes do you support? Which ones concern you?
- Do you see any of these changes as making change for political purposes while not having a positive benefit for children, for families, or the sector?
- Do you believe deregulation (the Government’s approach so far) is the right path? Or would you have preferred to see different priorities, such as increased investment in teacher salaries, stronger subsidies for families, and higher standards like group sizes and teacher‑to‑child ratios?
Share your thoughts in the comments below, or join the discussion on our Facebook page.
What can you do, right now?
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
| At a Glance: The Government’s ECE Reform Programme |
|---|
| Parent workforce participation made a core purpose of ECE regulation, with funding now being reviewed to support this shift. |
| ECE regulation enforcement and licensing moving from the Ministry of Education to ERO, splitting core system functions and raising concerns about the impact on ERO’s independence and quality‑assurance role. |
| Consequences for non‑compliance softened through a new graduated enforcement model, reducing the likelihood of licence changes. |
| Licensing criteria reduced, merged, and renumbered, making the structure harder to follow and creating extra administrative work as services update policies, documentation, and systems. |
| Greater use of unqualified adults permitted without funding penalties. |
| Pay parity expectations lowered, reducing recognition of qualifications and experience and weakening pay protections. |
| Pay equity claim halted. |
| “Person Responsible” not required to be fully certificated, allowing beginner teachers to supervise children and staff. |
| Qualification requirements for home‑based educators reduced, lowering expectations for training and weakening career pathways. |
| Further reductions to qualification requirements proposed, including redefining “qualified teacher” and splitting the “person responsible” role. |
| Immunisation certificate viewing and register requirements revoked, removing a key health‑protection step. |
| Network management removed, allowing new services to open regardless of community need. |
| New Director of Regulation role created, centralising significant regulatory authority in a single statutory position. |
