A Story of Changing State Priorities: Early Childhood Care and Education Policies in Aotearoa New Zealand

Abstract

During the last 30 years, the early childhood care and education (ECCE) system in Aotearoa New Zealand has undergone a significant change, starting with centralising ECCE policy-making and administration into the Ministry of Education (MoE) in 1986. The influential Before Five (Department of Education 1988b) policies, with a ‘children’s rights’ framework, aimed to ensure equitable access to affordable and good-quality ECCE for young children. In 1996, the internationally acclaimed values-based, bicultural ECCE curriculum framework, Te Whāriki (Ministry of Education 1996), which was developed in partnership with the indigenous Māori people, was released. Market-driven policy approaches underpin the government’s mostly hands-off approach to the supply and management of early childhood education services (ECES). Analysis of recent Ministry of Education data indicates (1) steady growth in ECCE participation, with growing numbers of children under 2 years attending for longer hours, (2) a change from mostly community-based ECCE provision to the majority of ECES being provided by private for-profit organisations, (3) that children living in poverty are less likely to attend licensed ECCE services and (4) growing population diversity. Lately the government has focussed on participation/enrolment targets often at the expense of ‘quality’ initiatives, particularly in relation to teaching qualifications.