Ministry of Education proposes refresh of ECE child protection obligations – but the change doesn’t go far enough

Ministry of Education proposes refresh of ECE child protection obligations – but the change doesn’t go far enough

OPINION – 28 July 2025.  

After 5-year-old Malachi Subecz was murdered by his caregiver in November 2021, a report into the circumstances surrounding the case recommended that the rules around child protection systems in Early Childhood Education centres be updated, to prevent a similar tragedy from occurring.

Nearly four years after Malachi’s death, the Ministry of Education is finally moving forward with plans to tighten up requirements for ECE services in responding to concerns about child abuse or neglect.

However, in the Office of Early Childhood Education’s view, the proposed changes don’t go far enough.

We’ve analysed how the changes proposed by the Ministry compare to the recommendations made by Dame Karen Poutasi, and found that they come up short.

The background: How Malachi’s death sparked calls for change

Staff at the ECE centre Malachi attended had reportedly noticed bruises to the little boy’s body in the weeks before he was killed by the friend of his mother who had been entrusted to look after him while his mum was in prison.

They said they took photos of the injuries, but never reported them to Oranga Tamariki, the police, or any other authority. (The manager of the centre recently told the Coroner’s court that staff did not think at the time the injuries were a sign of abuse and believed Malachi’s caregiver when she said the injuries were the result of an accident.)

After his whānau spoke out about how they’d raised concerns about Malachi’s care and safety with his ECE centre and Oranga Tamariki, but said they weren’t listened to, the Government commissioned an independent review into the circumstances surrounding Malachi’s death. 

Dame Karen Poutasi looked at how the children’s system responded to abuse.

In her report, published in December 2022, Poutasi identified five gaps in how the children’s system dealt with Malachi’s situation. She also made several recommendations, among them that the Government should actively monitor the implementation of ECE services’ child protection policies to ensure they are actually protecting children.

What the Ministry has proposed

During its consultation on the revised ECE licensing criteria put forward by the Ministry of Regulation, and signed off by Cabinet, the Ministry of Education has asked for feedback on a proposed amendment to the child protection requirement.

Currently, ECE services must have a written child protection policy and procedure for identifying, reporting and responding to child abuse and neglect. Services must review this policy and procedure every three years.

The Ministry intends to change the wording of the regulation to stipulate that the service needs to implement its child protection and procedure. It also aims to require services to provide evidence that they’ve reviewed the policy and procedure every three years, by evaluating how well the policy and procedure has worked in practice (or would work in practice, using an hypothetical scenario if the service has not responded to any child abuse or neglect in three years).

What’s missing from the Ministry’s proposal

Although the OECE is pleased that the Ministry is moving to strengthen its child protection requirements for ECE services, we’re disappointed that the Ministry has stopped short of committing to actively monitoring how ECE services are implementing their child protection policies and procedures, as Poutasi called for them to do. (see our submission to the Ministry on the proposed licensing changes)

Unless the Ministry is actively checking whether ECE services are adhering to the revised regulation, changing the wording of the regulation won’t really make children any safer.

The OECE would also like to see reporting of suspicion of child abuse and/or neglect made mandatory for all children’s workers – including ECE service providers and all managers and teaching staff and home-based educators.

We acknowledge that mandatory reporting alone won’t save the lives of other kids like Malachi because Oranga Tamariki and police must take reports of concern seriously and act on them for any policy changes to make a real difference. But in ECE, we must always do what we can to protect children and keep them safe from harm by having strong policies for child protection and, importantly, making sure policies are implemented.