Changes to early learning services ‘a great start’
The Early Childhood Council says the government’s move to dial back some legislative changes in early childhood will help teachers and managers focus on children, not unnecessary compliance.
Associate Education Minister David Seymour announced what he called a “down payment on deregulation” yesterday which he said would make setting up new centres easier, cheaper, and help existing services operate in a simpler way.
Cabinet has agreed to remove previous requirements that meant an early childhood centre which wanted to open or expand had to justify demand to the Ministry of Education, Seymour said.
“[In] any other business the test of whether there's demand is, do people come and give you the money in return for your services? Not ‘can you satisfy a government department that people might want to do that if you were allowed to open?” Seymour said. “It just wastes everyone’s time and makes it less efficient.”
He said providers and parents were best placed to decide where early learning services should be established. “Whether or not you are going to be successful as a centre won't depend on whether the Ministry of Education thinks the centre is needed in a particular area, but whether the parents ... want their kids to go to your centre.”
The changes also stop the introduction of requirements for higher level of certification that the Government thinks could make it difficult for early childhood centres to find staff.
This rule had held providers back from serving their communities, creating a series of pre-licencing hoops even when the demand was clear, said the Early Childhood Council’s chief executive, Simon Laube. “Over many years the government has imposed layer after layer of regulation, stifling innovation and creating barriers and hidden costs,” Laube said.
The Government is also proposing to revoke the National Statement on the Network of Licensed Early Childhood Services as soon as possible, to make granting approvals for new services faster, while the legislation is repealed. Consultation on this proposal opens today and runs until May 5.
Seymour also announced the removal of a change that would have taken effect in August and required a person with a full practising certificate on site all the time.
“We will retain the law we currently have that at any given time there must be a registered teacher in place,” Seymour said. “In many areas, particularly rural areas, it can be very hard to get a fully registered teacher all the time.
“If that one person was sick, you would have to pay a very expensive reliever in order to open, and when parents are going to work every day, they need you to be open,” Seymour said.
Laube said the changes “are a great start for introducing some common sense to childcare regulation, helping providers run more efficiently and better serve their communities”.
In late 2023, a survey by the council showed centres would need to restrict hours they opened or even close altogether to meet the regulation, when provisionally registered teachers would have been made ineligible to serve from August.
Laube also praised the scrapping of a new regulation “that makes it impossible to sell a centre”.
“Today’s announcement signals a fresh approach that’s really positive for centres and parents, whose children will benefit from quality childcare in ECE.
“We look forward to further regulation reviews to come. Along with the imminent funding review, these are positive signals to the ECE sector.”