There’s currently a teacher shortage in ECE in New Zealand, which is hardly surprising when you look at some of the challenges facing the sector. But, those working in ECE are now extremely concerned after Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour has proposed a raft of changes…
The first time I took my son to daycare, I’d spent the week in the lead up to it in full sobbing tears each night.
I was ridiculously lucky in that I didn’t have to send him as early as many of my friends, because family could help look after him, but now it was time and we found a lovely local daycare in West Auckland.
Despite checking it out and thinking it seemed like a great place, the act of actually giving your child over to a bunch of relative strangers can feel much the same as reaching into your chest, pulling out your own heart and handing that over. In fact, on those nights before taking him, I probably would have much preferred that option.
The fact is though, the vast majority of us simply have to send our precious little people off to daycare at increasingly young ages to be able to work and keep up with the cost of living. Yes, it may mean you wind up having a cry in your car as you tear yourself away each morning, pulling yourself together to go to work – but it simply has to be done.
Often, you’re paying significant sums of money (particularly if your child is under 3 so not yet eligible for the 20 government subsidized hours), and, you’re putting a lot of faith in others to care for your child. We simply want to know that our child will be safe and looked after.
It’s not news that the Early Childhood Education (ECE) sector has been under fairly significant pressure of late, but unfortunately, it looks like the stresses on ECE are only about to increase, if a new raft of proposals get the go ahead.
Regulations Minister and current Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour is proposing a number of changes, effecting several different operational aspects.
Of the ECE teachers I spoke to about the proposed changes, their views on the changes ranged from “yep, it really sucks to work in ECE at the moment” to “I’m genuinely concerned for the safety of our tamariki under these changes”.
The proposed changes they say they feel most concerned about involve regulation changes around how often sleeping babies should be checked, and approaches to pay.
A Matter of Money
David Seymour says in order to help ECE centres stay “viable” and not pass on costs to parents, it will now be up to individual centres to determine their starting salary, rather than be set up by the government according to the pay parity scheme with primary school teachers.
Because, of course. Who needs pay parity or a fair wage?
“This is going to have a negative impact, how can it not?” says Cathy* an ECE teacher in Hamilton. “This is only going to widen the divide between centres. We’ve all worked at one stage or another in a not-so-good daycare where everything is done at the bare minimum. Those centres are only going to fall further behind. And this particularly proposal is such an insult. It sends the message that the government really doesn’t give a toss about ECE teachers. We’re not as valued as other professions apparently – not enough to be paid fairly.”
David Seymour says that currently, ECE centres must pay people at certain rates and increase their pay at certain periods as determined by the government in order to qualify for funding.
“This is putting enormous funding pressure on the centres,” he says. “They can’t absorb it anymore, but the parents and the government, who are the funders of early childhood are also under real pressure.”
ECE workers though say they are concerned by the changes as there is already an ECE teacher shortage, which is, according to the Early Childhood Education Workforce Survey Report 2024 largely down to low pay.
There are also significant concerns around health and safety for those working in the sector. The ECEW Survey Report found that 73.3% of respondents expressed worry about the health and safety implications of deregulation in the ECE sector.
It’s a big problem, because we’re talking about a large number of kids – a number which is only growing.
In 2024 the number of children participating in licenced ECE services rose to 194,597 – a rise of 2% on the previous year. The number of teachers however was down 1% to 33,309. It’s worth noting here, that already, our ECE ratios are currently among the worst in the OECD.
The greatest increase in children in services was of those aged two or younger – it means 43% of facilities now report having a waitlist for kids in this age bracket.
A Matter of Time
The other of David Seymour’s proposals that’s causing concern, is the proposal that instead of sleeping infants needing to be checked on every 10 minutes, it should instead be pushed out to 15 minutes.
“That’s shocking to me,” says Julie* who is the manager at an ECE centre in Auckland. “In every centre I have run, we have checked in every five minutes. In fact, in most cases I always have someone in the room. You’re needed – there’s plenty of resettling and checking that needs to be done. A lot can happen in 15 minutes. My message to David Seymour would be, ‘We don’t want this David. No one wants this. How can any good come from this change? It’s preposterous! We should be making things more safe for our tamariki, not less!’”
Julie says she read the Herald article on Friday about the proposed changes to checking in on infants, which referenced the tragic death of a five-month-old baby boy who died in an early childhood facility in 2023. The baby was checked and was fine, but then 10 minutes later when the worker returned to the room, they found the baby had passed away. The coroner ruled the baby died from sudden unexpected death in infancy (SUDI) as there was no apparent cause of death.
Julie says she’s horrified by both the proposal to change these regulations, and by David Seymour’s response in that article.
In a statement to the Herald, referring to the 2023 death, he said: “The sad thing is that as critics accept, checking more frequently than required did not save the child.
It is wrong and insensitive to drag up a painful tragedy from years ago when the frequency of checking would not have prevented it. I question people trying to make political points out of traumatic incidents that happened years ago. My thoughts go out to the parents.”
Julie says, “it is incredibly, incredibly sad for the family, as well as the centre. It was relevant to the story though as that incident sparked conversation at the time as to whether the frequency of checking should be increased.”
“There is, of course, no way of knowing what might have happened should a teacher have been in the room. He’s false to blanketly say ‘it is wrong’ that a change in frequency of checking would not have prevented it. There is no way of knowing that, either way. It’s important to bring up, because this, sadly, is the reality of what can happen to infants – SUDI is a real risk. The responsibilities that rest on the shoulders of ECE workers need to be illustrated to politicians like Seymour, as well as the general public when weighing up if changes like these are wise. This is not about a witch hunt or retraumatising the parents or teachers of that centre. They were following that current rule book.”
If any changes should be made, Julie says, it should be to make checks on sleeping infants more frequent than the current 10 minutes.
“I have been in the room with an infant who had a medical emergency, who vomited and choked,” she says. “That was a traumatic instance. But, it had an overall positive outcome because I was already in the room and could respond swiftly and accordingly. I am deeply concerned at this bare-basics, no frills approach to early childhood services. These are our children.”
Cathy agrees. “I am now in a centre where someone always stays in the room with the sleeping infants,” she says. “At my last centre, the mandate was to follow the 10-minute rule. I hated it. You’d go back in and a baby might have woken up and was now distressed and had woken some of the babies around it, so it was this rush to soothe multiple babies. When you’re in the room, you can quickly attend to the baby and resettle it, while keeping an eye on the others. You can also quite often hear immediately any changes to the breathing of the babies. I would be concerned still working in that centre that they would now push out the frequency to 15 minutes, which I would not be able to handle. But now, that would cost me my job I guess if I refused.”
“A Dark Time for ECE”
Te Rito Maioha Early Childhood New Zealand says it is a “dark time for early childhood education”. They say there are rushed changes happening within the sector that are being implemented without proper consultation.
These changes come as further insult to the lack of investment in the Budget, they say. Te Rito Maioha says the sector has been left even worse off than they were a year ago.
“The sad reality is the government are demonstrating that they do not value ECE or that they do not believe the decades of evidence that attributes ‘high-quality ECE’ to better outcomes for children,” says Kathy Wolfe, Chief Executive of Te Rito Maioha.
“We’re heading back towards a system where quality education and what matters for our children are not the driving motivators behind government decisions. This is incredibly frustrating and sad, especially when you consider the significant return in future social costs when we get the right focus on investment in quality outcomes for children.”
They point to the stark realities of ECE in NZ – for a start, the fact that our ECE ratios are currently among the worst in the OECD. They are urging the government to improve our teacher to children ratios to “ensure Tamariki receive the quality education, care, and attention they need to thrive, learn and stay safe.”
In June the Government announced sweeping changes to how new ECE teachers are paid – scrapping the need for employers to take into account qualifications, ECE teaching experience and other relevant experience.
“The new rules,” says Mrs Wolfe, “give ECE centres the option of ignoring the qualifications or experience when employing a new teacher. An employer now can employ a new teacher on step one, the entry level salary for degree qualified teachers, regardless of whether they have multiple degrees and/or, regardless of their ECE work experience, or other relevant work experience. We sincerely hope that this will not happen and that employers will continue to value qualifications and experience. However without adequate funding, they will not have any options.
“This government appears to be saying that experience and education no longer matter, that quality early childhood education can be sacrificed in the name of government cost-cutting. But what we know is that parents want the best for their children, not a system that drives passionate, qualified teachers out of the profession.
“The announcement to freeze Pay Parity for two years is also a further sign that the government’s aim is to reduce their future investment commitments. This is purely a fiscal decision for the government. Employers now cannot opt into funded higher parity options to value their teaching staff. Unfortunately, it also stops New Zealand’s move towards a fully qualified ECE sector and erodes our place as a world leader in ECE.”
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