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Current Regulations

The basis for regulating early childhood education (ECE) is found in Part 26 of the Education Act 1989. An electronic version of this statute can be found on the Public Access to Legislation Project (PAL) website.

The current education-related legislation for licensed and/or chartered early childhood services in New Zealand is:

  • The Education (Early Childhood Centres) Regulations 1998,
  • The Education (Home-Based Care) Order 2002, and
  • The Revised Statement of Desirable Objectives and Practises (DOPs) for Chartered Early Childhood Services in New Zealand 1996.

Playgroups currently operate outside this regulatory system, having been specifically exempted from the requirement to be licensed via a NZ Gazette notice issued in 1991.

Links to all of these documents can be found in the right hand menu on this page.


Until the new regulatory framework is passed into law, services will continue to operate according to these requirements. 

Transition process

Once the new ECE regulatory framework is in place, all new ECE services will be licensed under the new framework (i.e. they will have to meet the standards and relevant set of criteria).  All existing ECE services will need to be re-licensed sometime during a transition period of 6 years. During this transition period a dual regulatory system will exist. Existing services will continue under the current regulations/requirements until they go through the re-licensing process.

The Ministry of Education will visit every currently licensed and/or chartered ECE service to assess them for compliance against the regulatory standards and relevant set of criteria.  The Ministry of Education will be able to issue a transitional licence (for a period of up to 18 months) to services found not to be meeting the regulatory standards to give them time to comply.