This week, the Education Minister Erica Stanford stressed the value of qualified teachers in early childhood education. The Minister made a statement in response to a call from the Teaching Council.

This followed the recommendations of the Regulatory Review into early childhood education suggesting that Māori, Pacific and rural children could be taught by unqualified staff because of the difficulties in attracting and retaining teachers.

Previously, Erica Stanford has left early childhood education matters to her Associate Minister David Seymour who has a clear preference for fewer requirements about qualified teachers.

On RNZ, she said “it is absolutely essential that we have qualified teaches in the room if we want to get outcomes for children before they go to school.”

“We must make sure that early childhood education is just that – education and not a baby-sitting service because if you want young people to be school-ready and hit the ground running they need to have good oral language skills, good numeracy skills and self-regulation and that requires qualified teachers in the classroom.”

Kindergartens Aotearoa, our national collective organisation, expressed support for the Minister’s stance on this issue and issued a press release.