Early childhood education makes a difference for a lifetime and New Zealand Kindergartens (NZK) commends the Government for developing a 10-year strategic plan to ensure high quality early childhood education provision.

“We have ambition for early childhood education in Aotearoa New Zealand. We expect every child and their whānau will have the opportunity to experience and participate in exceptional education in their community that is rich in their culture and meets their aspirations and dreams,” says NZK Chief Executive Jill Bond.

“We believe access to high quality early childhood education is a right for every child.” she says.

NZK’s view is that education policy needs to be across years 0 – 18 rather than within a sectoral, age-defined or historical construct, she says. Funding must be adequate to enable high quality teaching.

“Our top priority is a 100% qualified teaching workforce. We urge the Government to invest additional funding within the system and support kindergarten as the public provider of early childhood education to ensure the plan’s aims can be realised.

Early childhood education should be included in overarching educational system design because of its lifetime value. The system design needs to ensure seamless inclusion and transition for tamariki, curricula, learning support and overall alignment with the Tomorrow’s Schools and other change processes in the sector.

NZK’s submission recommends actions in addition to those currently proposed to fast track the plan. “We look forward to engaging with the Ministry of Education and sector colleagues to work at pace to enable every child to access high quality early childhood education” says Ms Bond.

Read the full submission here NZK submissions