Introduction

The views expressed in the ECE Taskforce Report are those of the independent ECE Taskforce and its members. The ECE Taskforce Report does not represent the views of the New Zealand Government, the Ministry of Education or the Education Review Office. The Government consulted the public on the ECE Taskforce Report during an eight week consultation period from June to August 2011.

The independent ECE Taskforce was established by Education Minister, Anne Tolley, in October 2010 to review the effectiveness of ECE spending and propose new ideas for innovative, cost effective and evidence-based ways to support children’s learning in early childhood and the first years of compulsory schooling.

The report of the ECE Taskforce, An Agenda for Amazing Children, was released on 1 June 2011.

The seeds of a great country are planted when its youngest citizens are acknowledged, welcomed, and supported to be all they can be. We recommend that the Government take action in the coming years to raise the quality of early childhood education in New Zealand, reduce variance in quality levels, and ensure that all children have access to appropriate services, given their needs. Funding for such actions should be given highest priority, even during times of fiscal pressures.

June 2011
Hon Anne Tolley

Minister of Education

Parliament Buildings

Wellington

Tēnā koe Minister Tolley:

LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL: AN AGENDA FOR AMAZING CHILDREN

Ki te kāhore he whakakitenga ka ngaro te iwi

In October 2010, you established an independent advisory taskforce on early childhood education, and invited me to chair it.

The members of the Early Childhood Education Taskforce were:

1. Tanya Harvey
2. Claire Johnstone
3. Dr Michael Mintrom (chair)
4. Professor Richie Poulton
5. Peter Reynolds
6. Professor Anne Smith
7. Aroaro Tamati
8. Laurayne Tafa
9. Ron Viviani.

We have now completed our work. Enclosed with this letter of transmittal, please find a copy of our final report: An Agenda for Amazing Children.

The seeds of a great country are planted when its youngest citizens are acknowledged, welcomed, and supported to be all they can be. We recommend that the Government take action in the coming years to raise the quality of early childhood education in New Zealand, reduce variance in quality levels, and ensure that all children have access to appropriate services, given their needs. Funding for such actions should be given highest priority, even during times of fiscal pressures.

Our report consists of two main parts.

Part One: The Role of Government in Early Childhood Education

We here present:

• An Introduction to the Report
• Principles of Policy Design
• The Case for Investing in Early Childhood Education
• Our Vision for the Future Early Childhood Education Sector
• An Overview of Our Recommendations
• Our Advice on Leading Change Processes.

Part Two: Making Change Happen: Eleven Essays on Policy Design

The essays and their topics are as follows:

Essay 1: Aiming for High-Quality Services

Essay 2: Reprioritising Government Expenditure

Essay 3: Reforming Funding Mechanisms

Essay 4: Achieving Access for All Children

Essay 5: Ensuring Access for Children with Special Education Needs

Essay 6: Enhancing ECE through Te Whāriki

Essay 7: Supporting Parents through ECE

Essay 8: Supporting Parental Engagement in Paid Work

Essay 9: Improving Licensing Processes and Performance Reporting

Essay 10: Improving Staff Education and Professional Development

Essay 11: Promoting an Innovative, Continuously Improving Sector

The essays on policy design can be read as stand-alone pieces, or as sequenced parts of the broader report. All the essays have a common structure. Each essay includes feedback from submissions, as well as our detailed recommendations for achieving the desired future state of early childhood education in New Zealand. In total, we present 65 recommendations for your consideration.

In parallel with our development of this traditional report format, we have also constructed an ECE Taskforce website containing several additional features. These features include video clips where Taskforce members introduce each of the topics of the essays on policy design. The additional website features also include short abstracts for each essay and simple diagrams outlining key points made in each essay. The aim is to offer a variety of entry points to the deeper policy discussions. Background papers and links to data are also on the website, as well as model tools associated with our essay on reforming funding mechanisms. These can be found on this website and through specific postings on YouTube.

Key Messages

An Agenda for Amazing Children contains the following key messages:

• An impressive body of research evidence confirms that returns from quality early childhood education are high and long lasting. Therefore, this is one of the most important investments a country can make.
• Early investments in citizens will increase their ability to contribute to society as productive adults, equipped and willing to give more than they take.
• Due to economic pressures and changing patterns of workforce participation by parents of very young children, in the coming years an important and sizeable shift will be needed to meet demand for places for one-to-two-year olds and ensure they can access quality early childhood education.
• Priority needs to be given to lifting early childhood education outcomes for Māori and Pasifika children and those from families of lower socio-economic backgrounds. Priority should also be given to ensuring appropriate services are available for all children with special education needs. Children in these categories have the most to gain from accessing high-quality early 
childhood education.
• The drive to higher quality across the sector needs to be continued through greater professionalism – as measured by qualifications of service staff. 
But alongside this drive for higher levels of qualifications, there needs to be a stronger and increased focus on developing broader measures and assessments of the quality of provision.
• A stronger emphasis on quality needs to be reinforced and supported by investment in the identification of effective professional practice, and focussed research and evaluation.
• Funding and regulatory mechanisms must be reformed in ways that drive up and reward the provision of higher quality services.
• More squeeze, accompanied by more direct support, should be put on lower quality providers, so they get the message loud and clear: improve or fade away.

The Challenge

We acknowledge the New Zealand Government is facing severe fiscal constraints. 
We also appreciate that – because of the size of the Government’s debt – fiscal pressures will continue for at least the next decade, no matter who occupies the Treasury benches in Parliament.

The ECE Taskforce deliberated from October 2010 through to April 2011. From the outset, and during that time, many sector stakeholders assumed that the Taskforce was established primarily to recommend reductions in future government spending on the sector. We never accepted that portrayal of our work. Rather, we have been concerned to show that universal access to high quality early childhood education for every young person is our best bet for placing New Zealand on an upward trajectory in terms of both social and economic outcomes. So we have sought to make a strong argument for the development of a professional, high-quality, continuously improving early childhood education sector in New Zealand. Our argument is well-supported by evidence from high-quality international research. Our national and international peer reviewers, 
a set of academics and policy practitioners from New Zealand and abroad, endorsed 
our conclusions.

Raising the quality of early childhood education in New Zealand, reducing variance in quality, and ensuring all children have access to appropriate services is costly. Our focus on making existing spending more effective, including reprioritising existing spending, makes us confident that, overall, our recommendations need not dramatically drive 
up the fiscal cost of early childhood education. However, new financial commitments 
will need to be made by families, employers, and others in society, as well as 
the Government.

We contend that the subsidies from Government needed to advance the early childhood education sector could be funded from within current fiscal resources. We are confident that much can be done with what Government already spends. But, longer term, we invite you and your colleagues to reprioritise current allocations of government spending to this important area, and not only within the budget for education. To you all we say: kia kaha, kia māia, kia manawanui.

A Summary of Our Recommendations

Our vision is for an early childhood sector that delivers high-quality services to all children, supports parents, and has a strong sense of collective identity among those working in the sector. To achieve our vision for the future of the early childhood sector, we recommend:

1. An immediate focus on system quality and the effective use of government spending. This includes:
• a careful review of spending to ensure it is high value
• strengthening quality measures for home-based services, education and care for children under two years of age, group sizes, and accountability measures for kōhanga reo
• reduced tolerance for variability and under-performing services – intensive support followed by decisive action for services receiving supplementary 
ERO reviews
• regulating for a minimum of 80% registered staff in teacher-led, centre-based services (up from 50%).
2. A better funding system. This should:
• drive up quality
• preserve the idea of universal access, including a subsidy for a core 20 Hours ECE, and fund on that basis, but
• include strongly differentiated payments for priority groups – Māori, Pasifika, children from lower socio-economic backgrounds and children with special education needs
• be linked to a new licensing system that differentiates between teacher-led, centre-based services and other services
• move away from cost drivers, and towards incentives, support and rewards
• remove unnecessary compliance costs for services.
3. Increased productivity by greater support for working parents. That means:
• services should be given incentives to meet the needs of working parents
• support from the Ministry of Social Development and the Ministry of Education should be combined into a single, transparent, easy-to-understand system that offers incentives and support for parents to return to paid work
• earning parents should expect to pay more for early childhood education where they can afford to.
4. Improved accountability. This would be achieved through:
• standardised performance and outcome reporting on government expenditure on early childhood education
• mandatory performance reporting by services, linked to their funding
• better information for parents about the quality of early childhood education services in their area
• an evaluation of the implementation of the national early childhood education curriculum, Te Whāriki.
5. A well-supported, highly-regarded, professional and innovative sector. 
It should:
• insist on high-quality education and invest in professional development, 
with Government setting the benchmark by creating minimum requirements
• provide warm and welcoming settings that draw on family strengths, becoming hubs within the community and, in some cases, sites for 
integrated services
• work collaboratively in a strong and unified manner that retains diversity
• be supported by Government with high-quality advice, and governance and management structures for stand-alone services, including umbrella groups for Māori and Pasifika services
• be supported by a policy regime that allows innovative practices to flourish and encourages the development of leadership from within the sector.
6. New roles and relationships. This means:
• Government continuing to provide primary leadership by setting regulatory requirements and providing funding
• professional leadership from the sector, driving a culture of continuous improvement in high-quality services
• partnerships drawing on the wealth of experience and knowledge within the sector, supported by officials and decision-makers
• more emphasis on cross-government responses to the needs of families.
7. A strong foundation in research and evidence. The components of this 
should include:
• a well-funded research programme, to include advice on optimal early childhood setting for children under the age of two
• evidence-based policies that take account of emerging research
• identification of effective professional practice
• systematic evaluation of innovative practices and ways of working.
8. A measured pace for change and regular reporting on progress and outcomes. This should include:
• the development of a government early childhood education expenditure strategy that provides a coherent framework for a programme of work
• a structured work programme in three phases – immediate quality measures, implementing supporting mechanisms and then putting improvements 
in place
• trial of the new funding system
• partnerships between the sector and Government.

Conclusion

New Zealand’s children hold enormous promise and potential. At the same time, children are incredibly vulnerable. As a society, our challenge is to take actions that will allow all children, as far as possible, to live amazing lives. Since the future well-being of all New Zealanders is intimately connected with the qualities embodied in our young people, it is fitting that we should judge ourselves by how well we treat our youngest children. What legacy do we wish to leave those generations who are following us? 
We should ask ourselves this question every day.

We know intuitively – and the research evidence is clear – that children’s experiences in their earliest years are of vital importance to their development, their well-being, and their success in later life.

Rather than rely on traditional sources of policy advice, you invited a diverse group of individuals to offer our views on the future directions of early childhood education in New Zealand. That was a far-sighted and bold decision. You and your colleagues might find it hard to concur with everything we have recommended here, but we know that you will seriously consider our advice, and we thank you for that.

In closing, on behalf of my ECE Taskforce colleagues, I wish to thank you for inviting us to think hard about the future of early childhood education in New Zealand and to prepare our report. We have greatly appreciated the support and encouragement that you have provided us as we have conducted our work. Thank you for your openness to fresh thinking about the role of government in New Zealand society. In five words, our message is:

Aotearoa

Amazing Children…

Amazing Country.

Kāti ake nei.

Nāku noa, nā,

Dr. Michael Mintrom

Chair

Early Childhood Education Taskforce