Hon Hekia Parata

Minister of Education

4 March 2014

‘Better Information for Parents’ now available

Education Minister Hekia Parata today announced the launch of a Ministry of Education project to encourage more families to ‘be involved, get enrolled’ in quality early childhood education (ECE).

The Better Information for Parents project, which is being led by the Ministry’s Early Learning Taskforce, is designed to help mums and dads understand how quality early learning and ECE can give their children a stronger start in education. It will be delivered to parents by frontline workers, online and through radio advertisements in seven languages.

“Earlier this month, we announced the latest ECE participation results that showed the number of children participating in ECE has continued to rise, to 95.7 per cent for the year ended December 2013. That’s an overall increase of 0.5 percentage points from the same time last year,” Ms Parata says.

Participation amongst Māori children has increased by 1.3 percentage points to 92.6 per cent, while participation amongst Pasifika children has also increased by 1.9 percentage points to 89.3 per cent.

“We are making great progress towards achieving our Better Public Services goal that in 2016, 98 per cent of children starting school will have participated in quality ECE. However, there is still work to be done,” Ms Parata says.

“Quality early childhood education grows confident, curious, life-long learners. It also positively impacts on children’s literacy, numeracy and problem solving skills well into their teenage years.”

“We want as many children as possible to enjoy the benefits of quality early learning, which is why this project is focussed on reaching out to parents in areas where the participation rate is lower, such as the Auckland region (94.3 per cent), the Waikato region (96.1 per cent) and the Wellington region (97.3 per cent).”

Better Information for Parents supports the Māori education strategy, Ka Hikitia – Accelerating Success 2013-2017 and the Pasifika Education Plan 2013-2017 by providing practical information for families to engage with their children’s education.

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