Hon David Seymour
Associate Minister of Education

Associate Education Minister David Seymour says the Government is cutting red tape in the ECE sector to help make it easier for providers to operate and offer more options to families looking for home-based education and care for their children.

“I have heard from providers that some of the red tape around home-based ECE care is too onerous and makes them spend too much time on compliance,” says Mr Seymour.

“While there is huge demand for ECEs, numbers show supply isn’t keeping up. That is why we are committed to making changes which will allow the industry to expand and continue to provide high-quality service for families and their children.

Current regulations require 60 percent of educators working for a home-based provider to hold a Level 4 ECE qualification. The remaining 40 percent can be anyone, whether they are working towards their qualification or not, in no particular ratio.

“Plans to increase the requirement to 80 percent of educators at the start of 2025 have been scrapped. It would have been burdensome for providers and make it difficult for those wanting to enter the profession by limiting opportunities. This also harms the prospects of industry growth, which providers want,” says Mr Seymour.

“We’ve listened to providers and added flexibility to the equation. From 1 January 2025 the qualified educator requirement will be removed all together and replaced with a requirement that 100 percent of educators are either fully qualified, or in training to be fully qualified, within six months of their employment.

“This means providers can more easily maintain the balance between qualified and in-training educators, reducing the possibility of closure. For smaller providers, the difference between compliance and non-compliance could be one qualified educator. This is the difference between a child being able to access education or not.

From 1 January 2025, the standard funding rate will no longer apply. All services will receive one single funding rate set at the current quality funding rate. This will become the new base rate for licensed home-based services regardless of how many qualified educators they have in their service.

“To further increase flexibility, we will also be allowing qualified educators to work as persons responsible for more than two different licensed home-based education services per month. This allows providers to find relief cover more easily,” says Mr Seymour.

“These changes, which I expect to be made by the end of this year, are part of our effort to reduce red tape in the early learning sector. Alongside these changes the Ministry for Regulation is conducting a regulatory review of the ECE sector as a whole.”

Note:

• Please find the graph referenced in paragraph 3 here: https://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/publications/ECE/annual-early-childhood-education-census/annual-ece-census-2023-fact-sheets)

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