Early Childhood Services Directory – API

The Ministry’s Early Childhood Services Directory Application Programming Interface (API) describes institution characteristics and provides contact information. Data are updated nightly.

This API has been developed to make the information available in a form that can be used by developers to build it into other applications. The Ministry uses the API to populate the Early Childhood Services Directory.

Early Childhood Services Directory

Click here to go to the data.govt.nz Data Explorer for the Early Childhood Services Directory API.

Details are included on the data.govt.nz site regarding downloading this dataset, as well as further information related to using APIs to facilitate more in-depth querying capabilities.

These files can also be accessed via the data.govt.nz Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). Among other things the APIs can assist you to:

combine the data with other datasets
make real-time calls to the datasets to make sure you’ve got the most recent data
provide a link from your application to a dataset on data.govt.nz.

The APIs offers a series of actions, such as:

Resource metadata show - gets the metadata of a specific data resource. The data resource download link, last updated date, etc. can be retrieved here.
Datastore search sql - executes SQL queries on the DataStore to search data in a resource or connect multiple resources with join expressions.

The data.govt.nz DataStore API allows you to access and query the rows and columns of raw data listed by agencies in machine readable format via a JSON API endpoint. For SQL queries this endpoint is https://catalogue.data.govt.nz/api/action/datastore_search_sql and the data sources for the ?sql= parameter are identified by Resource ID, shown in the table below:

Resource	ID
Early Childhood Services Directory	a9d65b07-8483-4b05-bdfd-d2abe4f38827

For instance, a request to: https://catalogue.data.govt.nz/api/3/action/datastore_search_sql?sql=SELECT * FROM"a9d65b07-8483-4b05-bdfd-d2abe4f38827" will return all rows and columns from the Early Childhood Services Directory dataset.

NB: The data in Ministry datasets contain macrons, so the query needs macrons as well. That is, specifying the column “Māori” as “Maori” will fail with a complaint that no such column exists.

Further technical documentation is available at https://docs.ckan.org/en/2.7/maintaining/datastore.html#the-datastore-api

Specifications

Field	Field Type	Nulls Allowed	Description
_ID	Text	No	A system ID added by the API development process.
ECE_Id	Text	No	Unique number assigned to each service.
Org_Name	Text	No	Full name of each service.
Telephone	Text	Yes	Telephone number for each service, including area code.
Fax	Text	Yes	Fax number for appropriate administrative contact for service. This data is no longer available.
Email	Text	Yes	Email address of the administrative contact for service.
Add1_Line1	Text	Yes	Street for location address.
Add1_Suburb	Text	Yes	Suburb for location address.
Add1_City	Text	Yes	Town or city for location address.
Org_Type	Text	Yes	The type of licensed service that the child is enrolled in. For example, kindergarten, kōhanga reo, etc.
Definition	Text	Yes	Definition provides further descriptive information on the type of service.
Authority	Text	Yes	The ownership of the early childhood service that the child is enrolled in. This can be Community Based or Privately Owned.
20_Hrs_ECE	Text	Yes	20 Hours ECE allows for those aged three and over in licensed ECE services to receive up to 20 hours a week of early childhood education with no compulsory fees.
KMEPeakBody	Text	Yes	Identifies if the service is affiliated to a kaupapa Māori education peak body. Currently the recognised kaupapa Māori education peak body in early childhood education is Te Kōhanga Reo National Trust.
Takiwā	Text	Yes	A region of New Zealand as defined by the Ministry of Education and used for Ministry administrative purposes. See Additional notes - Takiwā and education regions.
Equity_Index	Text	Yes	Equity funding is determined by a service's Equity Index value which is calculated using the addresses of children attending the service.
Territorial_Authority	Text	Yes	The territorial authority area of the service that the child is enrolled in. Territorial authority boundaries are defined by Statistics New Zealand. Care must be taken when interpreting the geographic location of home-based services as services will be listed under the location of the co-ordinator rather than the actual location of the service.
Urban_Rural_Indicator	Text	Yes	An urban or rural area as per Stats NZ Urban-Rural. Urban/Rural is an output geography that classifies New Zealand into areas that share common urban or rural.
Regional_Council	Text	Yes	The regional council area the service is located in. Regional council boundaries are defined by Stats NZ. Care must be taken when interpreting the geographic location of home-based services as services will be listed under the location of the co-ordinator rather than the actual location of the service.
Education_Region	Text	Yes	A region of New Zealand as defined by the Ministry of Education and used for Ministry administrative purposes. See Additional notes - Takiwā and education regions.
General_Electorate	Text	Yes	General Electorate as per Stats NZ General Electoral District. General electoral districts are the voting districts for parliamentary elections.
Māori_Electorate	Text	Yes	Māori Electorate as per Stats NZ Māori Electoral District. Māori electoral districts are the voting districts for parliamentary elections for people who choose to be on the Māori electoral roll. There are 7 Māori electoral districts in the Māori Electoral District 2023 classification.
Statistical_Area_2_ Code	Text	Yes	The Code of the Stats NZ Statistical Area 2 (SA2). See Additional notes – SA2.
Statistical_Area_2_ Description	Text	Yes	The Name of the Stats NZ Statistical Area 2 (SA2). See Additional notes – SA2.
Ward	Text	Yes	The ward area of the school as per Stats NZ Ward. Wards are subdivisions of territorial authorities and result from the division, for electoral purposes, of the district of a territorial authority.
Contact1_Name	Text	Yes	Contact name of management at the service.
Add2_Line1	Text	Yes	PO Box, Private Bag or rural delivery number for management contact.
Add2_Suburb	Text	Yes	Suburb for management contact.
Add2_City	Text	Yes	City for management contact.
Management_ Telephone	Text	Yes	Telephone number for management contact at each service, including area code.
Management_Fax	Text	Yes	Fax number for management contact at each service, including area code. This data is no longer available.
Latitude	Numeric	Yes	Latitudinal co-ordinate where the institution is located.
Longitude	Numeric	Yes	Longitudinal co-ordinate where the institution is located.
All_Children	Numeric	Yes	The maximum number of children an ECE centre can legally have attend and be on the premises at any one time.
Under_2s	Numeric	Yes	The maximum number of children under 2 years of age that an ECE centre can legally have attend and be on the premises at any one time.
Age_0	Numeric	Yes	The number of children at the service aged under 1 as at 1 July from the annual ECE Census (this is not at the date at the release of the directory).
Age_1	Numeric	Yes	The number of children at the service aged 1 as at 1 July from the annual ECE Census (this is not at the date at the release of the directory).
Age_2	Numeric	Yes	The number of children at the service aged 2 as at 1 July from the annual ECE Census (this is not at the date at the release of the directory).
Age_3	Numeric	Yes	The number of children at the service aged 3 as at 1 July from the annual ECE Census (this is not at the date at the release of the directory).
Age_4	Numeric	Yes	The number of children at the service aged 4 as at 1 July from the annual ECE Census (this is not at the date at the release of the directory).
Age_5	Numeric	Yes	The number of children at the service aged 5 as at 1 July from the annual ECE Census (this is not at the date at the release of the directory).
Roll_Date	Time-stamp	Yes	The date when the enrolment summary was determined.
Total	Numeric	Yes	The number of children at the service as at 1 July from the annual ECE Census (this is not at the date at the release of the directory).
European	Numeric	Yes	The number of children at the service that affiliate as European/Pākeha as at 1 July from the annual ECE Census (this is not at the date at the release of the directory). See Additional notes - Ethnic classification.
Māori	Numeric	Yes	The number of children at the service that affiliate as Māori as at 1 July from the annual ECE Census (this is not at the date at the release of the directory). See Additional notes - Ethnic classification.
Pacific	Numeric	Yes	The number of children at the service that affiliate as Pacific as at 1 July from the annual ECE Census (this is not at the date at the release of the directory). See Additional notes - Ethnic classification.
Asian	Numeric	Yes	The number of children at the service that affiliate as Asian as at 1 July from the annual ECE Census (this is not at the date at the release of the directory). See Additional notes - Ethnic classification.
Other	Numeric	Yes	The number of children at the service that affiliate as Other ethnicity as at 1 July from the annual ECE Census (this is not at the date at the release of the directory). See Additional notes - Ethnic classification.

Additional notes

Email addresses

Only early childhood services that agreed to the public release of their email address have those addresses listed in the Early Childhood Services Directory. Persons or organisations wishing to send email material to individuals or organisations whose email addresses appear in this directory must comply with the requirements of the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act 2007. Publication of email addresses on this site should not be taken as deemed consent to receiving unsolicited email.

Ethnic classification

The term "ethnicity" refers to the ethnic group or groups to which an individual belongs. The concept of ethnicity adopted by the Ministry of Education is a social construct of group affiliation and identity. The Ministry of Education uses the definition of ethnicity used by Stats NZ, namely:

A social group whose members have one or more of the following characteristics:

they share a sense of common origins,
they claim a common and distinctive history and destiny,
they possess one or more dimensions of collective cultural individuality,
they feel a sense of unique collective solidarity.

Ethnicity classification in the Early Learning Services Directory is multiple response. This considers each ethnicity a person affiliates with as one data entry. For example, the data relating to an individual who affiliates as both Māori and Pacific will be included in both categories. They are, however, included only once in the total.

SA2

SA2 (Statistical Area 2) are functional areas that usually have a shared road network, community facilities, historical or social links and socioeconomic similarities. In cities, SA2 areas are usually suburbs or part-suburbs with 2,000 to 4,000 residents. In rural districts many SA2 areas have populations of fewer than 1,000 residents.

Takiwā and education regions

Takiwā and education regions are regions defined by the Ministry of Education that are used for Ministry administrative purposes. New Zealand is split into three takiwā, each made up of four education regions. They are:

Te Tai Raro;
comprising the following education regions:

Tai Tokerau
Tāmaki Herenga Tāngata
Tāmaki Herenga Manawa
Tāmaki Herenga Waka

Te Tai Whenua;
comprising the following education regions:

Waikato
Bay of Plenty, Waiariki
Taranaki, Whanganui, Manawatū
Hawke's Bay, Tairāwhiti

Te Tai Runga;
comprising the following education regions:

Wellington
Nelson, Marlborough, West Coast
Canterbury and Chatham Islands
Otago, Southland

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