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A group of leading early childhood academics warns planned changes to ECE regulations are not in children's best interests.
They are urging the government to stop.
The Ministry of Regulation last year found that excessive early childhood rules needed trimming and the government accepted its recommendations.
This week, nine researchers wrote to the government urging it to consult before it goes any further.
"The review recommendations are inconsistent with the best interests of children and go against decades of research evidence on how to ensure high quality ECE," they wrote.
"We have deep concerns about the ECE Regulatory Review recommendations. The ECE Regulatory Review Report was released on 18 December 2024. The Minister for Regulations and Associate Minister of Education David Seymour accepted all the recommendations and announced he would take them to Cabinet early in 2025, thus leaving no room for sector analysis and feedback before their Cabinet consideration."
The letter said plans to remove regulated curriculum standards and to recognise qualifications other than teaching qualifications for funding and staffing purposes should be ditched altogether.
The letter was signed by current and previous academics from AUT, Otago, Victoria and Waikato universities.
Professor Alex Gunn from Otago's College of Education told RNZ the group was worried the recommendations were potentially far further reaching than the problems they intended to solve.
"They prioritise business interests and efficiencies to the detriment, we think, of children, family, educators and actually the education system," she said.
Gunn said the group feared Regulations Minister David Seymour was rushing to get changes through Cabinet before people in the sector really understood the review's recommendations.
She said changes to licensing criteria related to the curriculum could lower the quality of early childhood education some centres provided.
"Every single experience of those children matters for those children's lives," she said.
Gunn said the group was also worried by a recommendation that the system recognise qualifications other than early childhood teaching qualifications.
Currently at least half the staff in early learning services must be qualified teachers and services received higher rates of funding if they had higher proportions of qualified teachers.
"This is a minefield and needs some quite careful working through because teacher qualifications are one of the most direct factors in determining the quality of experience that children have," Gunn said.
Seymour who is also Regulations Minister said the review's first priorities were safety and education.
