Early Childhood Education Services

There are different kinds of ECE services offering education and care to children from birth to school age. These services can either be 'teacher-led', 'whānau-led', or 'parent-led'. All ECE services must be licenced or certified by the Ministry of Education.

Teacher-led services need to have at least 50% of teaching staff who are qualified and certified as ECE teachers. Teacher-led services include kindergartens, education and care services, home-based education and care, and Te Kura (the Correspondence School).

'Whānau-led' or 'Parent-led' means that whānau, parents and caregivers are involved in educating and caring for their children. Te Kōhanga Reo are whānau-led services offering a Māori environment for tamariki and their whānau. Parent-led services includes Playcentres and Playgroups.

The following document gives an overview of key findings from the latest ECE census.

The tables below provide statistics on the number of ECE services, licensed places and waiting times. These include interactive pivot tables which allow you to create your own tables by any combination of variables available and time-series files which are pre-made tables which centre on key statistics.

Please note: use of the pivot table spreadsheets require MS Excel version 2007 or later.

New Services

Closed Services

Number of Services

Number of Licensed ECE Places

Waiting Times