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 2024 ECE census week was June 17 to 24.

Key findings

Participation

• The number of children attending licensed early childhood services increased from 191,602 in June 2023 to 194,597 in June 2024 (a 2% increase).
• The number of children attending licensed early childhood services increased for all ages except for children under 2. Children aged 3 had the greatest increase in numbers of children attending between 2023 and 2024.
• Education and Care centres continued to be the most common service type attended. 71% of the children participating in ECE during the census week were at an education and care centre.

Services

• There were 4,409 licensed early childhood services as of June 2024. This is a 5% decrease in the number of licensed early childhood services since 2019: from 4,652 in 2019, to 4,409 in 2024.
• In 2024, occupancy rates for education & care services increased from the previous year to 78%. Occupancy rates for kindergartens remained at 81% and playcentres remained at 51%.
• In 2024, the proportion of services with wait lists for children aged under 2 decreased compared to 2023 (a 5.8 percentage point decrease for under 1-year-olds and a 5.1 percentage point decrease for 1-year-olds). The proportion of services with wait lists for children aged 2 or over decreased (a 2.0 percentage point decrease for 2-year-olds, 1.1 percentage point decrease for 3-year-olds, 1.1 percentage point decrease for 4-year-olds).

Teaching staff

• There were 33,309 teaching staff (qualified and unqualified) at licensed early childhood services and Te Kura (the Correspondence School) in June 2024. This was a 1% decrease from 33,736 in 2023.
• The number of qualified teaching staff increased by 2%, from 23,340 in 2023 to 23,699 in 2024; unqualified teachers decreased by 8% from 10,396 to 9,610.
• The proportion of Māori teaching staff who were qualified teachers increased to 68%, from 66%, and remained at 66% for Pacific teaching staff.
• The number of home-based educators at licensed home-based services decreased by 10% from 3,937 in 2023 to 3,534 in 2024. The number of Home-based Educators has fallen each year since 2018, when there were 7,700 Home-based Educators.