New Zealand’s Early Childhood Council welcomes Simon Laube as new CEO

New Zealand’s largest member organisation for community and privately owned early learning providers, the Early Childhood Council (ECC) has announced the appointment of Simon Laube as CEO, effective mid October.

Mr Laube joins ECC from the Ministry of Education, and has an extensive background in early learning across a number of key influential positions, including Senior Manager, Principal Advisor and Director within the Ministry on early childhood and early learning, and leading portfolios like the Te Kohanga Reo Treaty claim.

ECC president, Dr Darius Singh, said he was delighted that Mr Laube has chosen to lead the ECC, welcoming his in-depth knowledge, relationships and experience in early childhood education policy, and regulatory and funding frameworks.

While there are significant challenges facing the early learning sector in New Zealand, including pay parity and pay equity and the ongoing effect of the pandemic on the sector and the children it cares for, Dr Singh remained optimistic about the changes which are possible under Mr Laube’s leadership. 

“There’s so much opportunity to build on our world class early learning offering and unleash its potential – we’re very pleased Simon will lead us into this exciting period,” he added. 

Mr Laube said the flexibility of learning options in New Zealand allowed parents to make the best choice for their family and circumstances, something which was a point of pride for him as a leader. 

“On the flipside, we don’t want decisions to be made for early learning with closer attention being paid to other matters that, for example, might be more applicable to compulsory schooling. ECE and schooling are not the same. Equally, not everything we do in ECE is about education,” he added.

The ECC represents the interests of over 1350 early childhood education services in New Zealand. To learn more about the work of the ECC, please see here.