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All home-based early learning services must meet the requirements set out in the regulations.
Qualification requirements
Your licensed home-based early learning service must meet these requirements:
- For standard-funded services, at least 60% of educators on a licence must hold a recognised qualification.
- For quality-funded services, at least 80% of educators on a licence must hold a recognised qualification.
From 1 January 2025, all home-based services will need to meet the 80% qualified educators requirement.
You must check each month that your service is meeting this requirement.
When doing your monthly head count:
- include only educators that provided education and care on at least 4 days in the calendar month
- each educator can only count towards 1 licence for the month.
When working out the head count, round fractions of 0.5 or more up to the nearest whole number.
Use the spreadsheet below as a guide to work out how many of your educators need to be qualified.
Number of qualified educators requiredRecognised teaching qualifications
The recognised qualifications are:
- a Level 4 or higher ECE qualification listed on the New Zealand Qualifications Framework or recognised by the Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand for registration purposes
- a Level 3 ECE qualification completed before 1 June 2022
- a primary teaching qualification
- a level 5, or above, qualification developed by Te Kōhanga Reo National Trust Board.
You can see the list of recognised qualifications here.
Accepted qualifications for home-based early learning educationIf you are unsure about whether a qualification meets the requirements, contact us.
Email: [email protected]
Overseas qualifications
New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) must assess overseas qualifications.
International qualifications assessment – NZQA
Overseas teaching experience can sometimes be recognised as a qualification. The Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand has more information.
Information for overseas-trained teachers – Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand
Record keeping
You must keep:
- monthly staff records to show how you are meeting the percentage qualification requirements
- a record of all educators, their qualifications and their start and end dates with the service
- evidence of educators' qualifications, such as certified copies of qualifications or a record of enrolment for staff who are studying that shows their course start date.
The spreadsheet below is an example of how a service might record this information.
Example of master record and monthly record The ECE Funding Handbook has more information about record keeping requirements.
ECE funding handbook: L 11-1 Record keeping requirements
Unqualified staff
From 1 January 2025, educators entering the home-based workforce have 6 months to enrol in study. This must be a Level 4 ECE qualification or Te Ara Tuarua.
Educators have 2 years to complete the qualification. If they are working towards an ECE teaching qualification at Level 7 or above, they have up to 4 years.
Visiting teacher support payment
Standard-funded services with at least 1 educator who is studying can claim this support. This funding is to help pay for a visiting teacher to support educators in training.
Apply
Apply for the payment each funding period using the online form.
Visiting teacher support payment survey
You must keep records of educators who are studying.
