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To: Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and the Aotearoa / New Zealand Government

Back quality early childhood education for all tamariki!


To Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and the Aotearoa New Zealand Government: Stop undermining decades of progress for teachers, children and their families and start backing quality early childhood education for all tamariki (children).

Join us by adding your name, calling on the Government of Aotearoa New Zealand to:  

  • Ensure pay parity and conditions for staff. Value early childhood teachers by paying them at pay parity rates – the same as their primary and secondary colleagues. Make make sure we have fully qualified teachers for our youngest learners.

  • Ko te tamaiti te pūtake – put the child at the heart of any decisions about early childhood education. Listen to early childhood educators about what’s needed so that we put children’s needs first.  
     
  • Honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi in education. Education needs to include all tamariki and rightfully acknowledge Māori as tangata whenua. Retain all commitments and references to Te Tiriti o Waitangi. 
     
  • Honour and uphold Te Whāriki, our world-leading curriculum, and the standards which support its use. 

  • Provide culturally responsive education. Ensure the language, culture, and identity of all tamariki is respected and celebrated.  Ensure kaupapa Māori education delivered through kōhanga reo and puna reo is sustained, culturally embedded environments and practices are upheld, and kaimahi working in these settings are valued. 

  • Respect regulations that lead to quality education. This means not watering down qualified teacher requirements, legislating for safe ratios of teachers to children, increasing funding and access to learning support to create the conditions to make safe, high-quality teaching and learning possible. 
 
  • Make decisions using evidence-based practice. Make sure the experts – workforce, early childhood academics and researchers, children’s organisations, iwi, hapū, and whānau – are at the table and fully consulted ahead of any changes.

Why is this important?

Our youngest learners deserve the best. 

Children’s early years are the most important – for their learning and wellbeing, and outcomes for the rest of their lives. The research backs this up: the benefits of public investment in high-quality early childhood education far outweigh the costs. 

Yet, right now, the Government is making changes to scrap pay parity for teachers, undermine qualified teacher requirements, scrap curriculum standards that ensure quality teaching, remove requirements to honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi, remove important safety regulations for tamariki, and more.  

It’s teachers' qualifications, professionalism, and expertise that make the difference for tamariki. But teachers can only do their best when they’re respected, valued, and supported with teacher-to-child ratios and conditions which create quality learning.   
 
The Government has already scrapped early childhood teachers’ pay equity claim and removed pay parity for all new, relieving, and fixed-term teachers, and said it will scrap pay parity for early childhood teachers, all so greater profit can be made from children’s education.    

We are now at a critical point where the changes that are being pushed through will have serious long-term impacts on tamariki, whānau, and early childhood kaiako.
Early education has a huge effect on children's life outcomes.

Right now, the Government is progressively removing important regulations and teachers' rights that ensure quality early childhood education for tamariki.

Signatories:

Child Poverty Action Group 
Dr Linda Mitchell  – professor and early childhood education academic 
Early Childhood Academic Special Interest Group  –  a group of expert ECE academics across Aotearoa 
Education International – global union for 33 million teachers and education workers 
TIASA (Tertiary Institutes Allied Staff Association Te Hononga) 
NZCTU – Te Kauae Kaimahi
Child’s Rights Alliance (CRAANZ) 
Unite Union 
Equity New Zealand 
E tū 
NZNO Tōpūtanga Tapahi Kaitiaki o Aotearoa 
Workers First Union 
PSA Te Pūkenga Here Tikanga Mahi 
He Whānau Manaaki 
Childspace 

Updates

2025-07-25 15:37:53 +1200

Pay parity on the chopping block via funding review: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/567963/newly-qualified-early-childhood-teachers-to-lose-as-much-as-22m-over-next-two-years

RNZ has broken a story on advice provided to the Associate Minister of Education David Seymour, which said the ECE Funding Review could be used as an opportunity to reduce costs by cutting pay parity altogether.

This is devastating news for everyone working in early childhood education and all those who are training to become qualified early childhood teachers.

It also leaves us with no doubt whatsoever as to the Government’s priorities – putting providers’ profits before teachers’ pay, disregarding the immense value of qualified early childhood teachers and the contribution they make.

We’ll be taking further action around this – so keep an eye out. In the meantime, the two most powerful actions you can take are:
- Sharing this open letter
- Completing the ECE workforce survey

2025-05-31 15:34:05 +1200

5,000 signatures reached

2025-05-29 00:41:12 +1200

1,000 signatures reached

2025-05-28 21:41:11 +1200

500 signatures reached

2025-05-28 20:38:59 +1200

100 signatures reached

2025-05-28 20:27:10 +1200

50 signatures reached

2025-05-28 20:23:24 +1200

25 signatures reached

2025-05-28 20:22:32 +1200

10 signatures reached