Summary

The Early Childhood Education (ECE) census is administered every year and provides a snapshot of high level statistics for ECE in New Zealand. Data captured is for a one week period, typically the last week in June and includes information about the services, enrolment/attendance numbers, teaching staff, and the use of languages.

The 2023 ECE census week was June 19 to 25.

Key findings

Participation

• The number of children attending licensed early childhood services increased from 181,045 in June 2022 to 191,602 in June 2023 (a 6% increase).
• The number of children attending licensed early childhood services increased for all ages except for children under 1 (0 years). Children aged 2 and 3 had the greatest increase in numbers of children attending between 2022 and 2023.
• Education and Care centres continued to be the most common service type attended, with 71% of children attending early learning at an Education & Care centre in June 2023.

Services

• There were 4,483 licensed early childhood services as of the June 2023. This is a 2% decrease in the number of licensed early childhood services since 2018: from 4,568 in 2018, to 4,483 in 2023.
• In 2023, occupancy rates for Education & Care centres remained at 77%, while occupancy rates for Kindergartens decreased from 82% in 2022 to 81% in 2023 and occupancy rates for Playcentres increased from 49% to 51%.
• Between 2022 and 2023 the proportion of services with wait lists for children aged up to 2 decreased, compared with an increase between 2021 and 2022. Conversely, the proportion of services with wait lists for children aged 2 or over increased. This was also the opposite of the change between 2021 and 2022.

Teaching staff

• There were 33,736 teaching staff (qualified and unqualified) at licensed early childhood services and Te Kura (the Correspondence School) in June 2023. This was a 3% increase from 32,632 in 2022.
• The number of qualified teachers increased by 3% from 22,655 in 2022 to 23,340 in 2023. The number of unqualified teachers increased by 4% from 9,977 in 2022 to 10,396 in 2023.
• The proportion of Māori teaching staff who were qualified teachers increased to 66% from 65% and decreased to 66% from 67% for Pacific teaching staff.
• The number of home-based educators at licensed home-based services decreased by 13% from 4,510 in 2022 to 3,937 in 2023. The number of Home-based Educators has fallen each year since 2018, when there were 7,700 Home-based Educators.