36326 (2026). Hon Jan Tinetti to the Associate Minister of Education

36326 (2026). Hon Jan Tinetti to the Associate Minister of Education: What data, if any, is recorded by the Ministry of Education regarding the amount of teachers in Early Childhood Education centres who do not hold a teaching qualification; if any, how many teachers in Early Childhood Education centres did not hold a teaching qualification, expressed as a percentage, during the week of November 27th 2023?

Hon David Seymour: ECE staffing is published annually on Education Counts at https://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/publications/ECE/annual-early-childhood-education-census Information on weekly staffing is not held by the Ministry of Education. In 2025 there were 33,712 teaching staff (qualified and unqualified) at licensed early childhood services. This was a 1% increase from 33,297 teaching staff in 2024. The number of qualified teachers increased by 2%, from 23,687, to 24,167. The number of unqualified teachers decreased by 0.7% from 9,610 to 9,545. In 2025, 28.3% of ECE teaching staff were unqualified. This is also my response to written parliamentary question 36328 (2026).