The Rise and Rise of Early Childhood Education in New Zealand

In 1996, the early childhood curriculum for New Zealand was released. Until the education reforms of the 1980s, education for the ‘under-fives' and for children of compulsory school aged children (5–16+ year olds) followed separate paths. In the 1980s, the reforms of educational and social services provided an opportunity for the development of a coherent and distinctive statement of the aims and practices of the early childhood movement. This paper outlines the process of development of this statement, describes the final outcome -Te whariki: He whariki matauranga mo nga mokopuna o Aotearoa. Early childhood curriculum (Ministry of Education, 1996) - and discusses the impact that it was to have on both early childhood and compulsory education. The author argues that this statement gave credibility to an already vibrant early childhood movement and provided a model of an integrated curriculum that was to stand tall against the trend towards more structured and prescriptive curriculum documents.