Struggling to maintain diversity: The marginalisation of Playcentre in government early childhood education and care policy

 Playcentre is a parent cooperative early childhood service where parents are trained and supported as the educators in the service. Once considered a ‘mainstream’ service, policy has increasingly marginalised Playcentres in favour of supporting teacher-led services. This article gives a background of parent cooperative services, and then reviews policies of the fifth National government from 2008, with an emphasis on how these policies have accommodated or excluded Playcentre. This review is presented as an argument for maintaining diversity in the early childhood education and care sector by developing policy which accommodates parent cooperative services.