Funding Handbook
The Early Childhood Education Handbook details payment of government funding to early childhood services.
Updates
18 February 2013
The ECE Funding Handbook has been updated to reflect changes made to the Enrolment Agreement form.
Some changes have been made to the mandatory sections of the Enrolment Agreement form as part of the roll-out of the Early Learning Information (ELI) system beginning in 2013.
Some wording, grammatical and formatting changes have also been made to other sections of the Enrolment Agreement form.
If you prefer to keep a Handbook in hardcopy, please discard Appendix 2 and replace it with the updated version.
1 July 2012
The ECE Funding Handbook has been updated to reflect clarification provided around optional charges, which are a component of the provision of 20 Hours ECE.
29 June 2012
The ECE Funding Handbook has been updated to reflect changes made to the Home-based ECE Quality Funding Rate criteria. Registered primary school teachers are included in the qualification requirments for home-based quality rate funding (Chapter 3-B-4).
If you prefer to keep a Handbook in hardcopy, please discard Chapter 3 and reprint it.
24 May 2012
The ECE Funding Handbook has been updated to reflect increases made to Equity Funding in Budget 2012. These increases come into affect from 1 July 2012.
If you prefer to keep a Handbook in hardcopy, please discard the following chapters and reprint them.
26 September 2011
The ECE Funding Handbook has been updated to reflect changes made to the Support Grant for Provisionally Registered Teachers (PRTs) from 1 July 2011.
If you prefer to keep a Handbook in hardcopy, please discard the following chapters and reprint them.
19 May 2011
There have been some important changes announced in Budget 2011.
These changes include:
- the extension of Equity Funding to all eligible licensed ECE services effective from 1 July 2011,
- new rates for all-day and sessional kindergartens, and
- an increase in rates for all other ECE services effective from 1 July 2011.
If you prefer to keep a Funding Handbook in hardcopy, please discard chapters 2, 10, the Glossary and Appendix One. Replace them with the updated versions available on this website.
28 February 2011
The ECE Funding Handbook currently states that the change to quality rate funding eligibility requirements will occur from 1 March 2011. The change in requirements includes the option for educators to hold some credits of a Level 4 ECE qualification listed on the New Zealand Qualifications Framework.
The Ministry has deferred the implementation date for the revised eligibility requirements. New eligibility requirements will now come in to force on 1 July 2011.
This change in implementation date is an outcome of advice from ECE qualification providers to support the update and review of qualifications available to educators.
Current quality rate funding eligibility requirements will remain until 1 July 2011.
The ECE Funding Handbook will be updated accordingly.
February 2011
Information on optional charges has been updated on 4-3 Fees, donations and optional charges.
Important changes effective from 1 December 2010
New info: Frequent Absence Rule: extension for extended non-operation
Services that do not operate for a period of two weeks or more may extend the Frequent Absence Rule where a child has already been frequently absent the previous month.
The Frequent Absence Rule must be continued from the next full month of operation after the period of non-operation.
For example, if a pattern of frequent absence first occurred in the month of December, this would be month one. If a service did not operate in January for a period of two weeks or more and February was the next full month of operation, February would be month two.
Some examples of extended non-operation where the Frequent Absence Rule can be suspended are:
- Christmas holidays
- ‘end of term’ holidays
- when a service is closed for renovations.
Note: this information is not currently in the Handbook, but will be added in the near future. This information is applicable as of 1 December 2010.
September 2010
Since the last version of the Handbook there have been a number of changes. The Handbook has been updated to include changes announced in Budget 2010:
- the removal of the 80-99% and 100% funding rates in Appendix One effective from 1 February 2011
- a change to the optional charge rule effective from 1 February 2011
- the inclusion of New Zealand qualified and registered primary teachers for funding purposes effective from 1 November 2010
- the new home-based educator qualification requirements for quality rate funding.
If you prefer to keep a Handbook in hardcopy, please discard the following pages and reprint them.
July 2010
Three pages have been updated:
June 2010
The Funding Rate Table in Appendix One has been updated to show the increase in GST and the new funding band from February 2011.
23 March 2010
The Handbook has been updated to include:
- the new Education (early Childhood Services) Regulations 2008 terminology
- the name change to 20 Hours ECE which occurred last year
- eligibility to 20 Hours ECE for five-year-olds and those attending playcentres and kōhanga reo from 1 July 2010, and
- other changes. For example the new term Plus 10 ECE, which is the new label for what was previously called 'Free Subsidy'.
Compliance with the new ECE Funding Handbook is effective from 23 March 2010.
Services will also be able to use the new Enrolment Agreement Form which can be downloaded from 6-1 Enrolment Records or www.minedu.govt.nz/eceforms.
Other forms used by ECE services have also been updated to reflect these changes and can be found at www.minedu.govt.nz/eceforms.
Who is the Handbook for?
The Handbook is written for:
- national bodies and advocates for ECE
- managers, administrators, teachers, parents and whanau working in licensed ECE services
- staff and administrators of centrally-administrated ECE services
- Ministry of Education staff.
Although not specifically written for them, other people with an interest in ECE funding (such as teacher education providers) may also find the Handbook of interest.
What information is in the Handbook?
The Handbook is designed as a 'one-stop-shop' for information about the following:
- The Funding Subsidy
- All ECE Funding
- Equity Funding
- The Support Grant for Provisionally Registered Teachers
- The Annual Top-up for Isolated Services (ATIS)
The Handbook includes background information about the 'what', 'where', 'when' and 'why' of ECE funding, as well as practical instructions for completing funding tasks such as the RS7 Form.
In this section