💰 The Real Cost of Quality — Why ECE Is Under Pressure in Aotearoa

Understanding what it truly takes to provide high-quality early learning environments

Kia ora e te whānau,

Welcome back to The Inside Scoop, where we aim to unpack what’s happening in the early childhood education sector and help families understand how national decisions shape daily life for tamariki, kaiako and centres like ours.

Today, we’re diving into an issue facing many centres across Aotearoa:the growing gap between what it costs to run a high-quality early learning service and the level of funding available to support it.

🧾 What Does “Quality” Actually Mean?

Quality in early childhood education is more than colourful resources and beautiful environments. True quality includes:

• Highly skilled, qualified teachers

• Low teacher-to-child ratios

• Safe, nurturing and calm learning spaces

• Support for diverse learning needs

• Ongoing professional development

• Compliance with extensive legal and regulatory requirements

Each of these elements carries real and rising costs — and quality requires the resources to sustain them.

💡 The Reality: Funding Doesn’t Match Actual Costs

While centres receive government funding, it covers only a portion of what it truly costs to operate — particularly for centres committed to high quality and well-being.

Government funding is:

• Not adjusted to match real cost increases (e.g., wages, compliance, building expenses, power, insurance)

• Not aligned with staffing expectations such as pay parity and growing qualification requirements

• Controlled through rules that restrict how centres can set parent fees

• Insufficient to maintain competitive wages and retain experienced teachers

So while the government provides funding, it:🔹 does not cover the real cost of delivery, and🔹 limits centres in generating the rest through parent fees.

This leaves centres across Aotearoa running on a financial tightrope, doing everything possible to protect quality but increasingly stretched to keep services sustainable.

🧠 Why This Matters for Tamariki

Underfunding doesn’t just affect budgets — it affects children’s daily experiences.

When funding is inadequate, centres are forced to make difficult decisions around:

• Ratios and group sizes

• Retaining or attracting experienced teachers

• Access to learning support

• Resourcing and environment upgrades

• Ability to fully support diverse learning needs

Children deserve the best start — not a system based on what is cheapest to provide.

👩‍🏫 Why It Matters for Kaiako

Teachers are at the heart of early learning. Research clearly shows that the strongest learning outcomes happen when children spend time with warm, responsive, well-supported, experienced adults.

Yet the sector is experiencing a staffing crisis due to:

• Low pay compared with primary and secondary education

• Rising workload and compliance pressure

• Burnout and turnover

• Difficulty attracting and retaining qualified kaiako

When kaiako are supported, valued and well-resourced, children thrive.

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Why It Matters for Whānau

When the system is stretched, families feel the impact through:

• Limited availability of spaces

• Fees increasing faster than household income

• Reduced access to learning support services

• Reduced stability due to staffing turnover

Families deserve a system that is affordable, accessible and high-quality — not one held together “just barely” behind the scenes.

🌟 What We’re Calling For

At the recent Ministerial Advisory Group hui in Christchurch, I advocated for:

• Funding that reflects real operating costs

• Better pay parity for teachers

• Improved ratios for tamariki

• Reduced fees for families

• Better funding and easier access to support for children with diverse learning needs

• 20 hours ECE from age 2 to improve affordability and attendance

These changes would allow centres to focus on what matters most: excellent education and care for every child.

✨ Moving Forward Together

We remain deeply committed to transparency and partnership. Our goal is to protect the rich, nurturing Montessori learning environment your tamariki experience every day — even in a system under pressure.

Thank you for your ongoing trust, support, and voice. Together, we can push for a future where funding reflects the true value of the early years — the years that build the foundation for life.