Very few early childhood centres were likely to take up the Government's 20 hours free education and that figure was likely to dive further, the Early Childhood Council's annual conference has been told.
Council chief executive Sue Thorne said a survey of 1000 early childhood centres, which wascompleted last week, had revealed "a very low uptake" of the policy.
Many centres also had indicated an intention to opt in only because Government had not made the rules clear to them, she said.
Only 23.9 per cent of community and privately owned centres had said they would opt in to the 20 hours free education policy, Mrs Thorne said.
"But worse than that, according to our survey, many centres with costs in excess of the free ECE (early childhood education) rates are opting in only because they believe they are able to offset their losses by increasing fees for the hours three and four-year-olds attend over and above the 20 free, or by increasing fees for one and two year olds," she said.
"The minister of education made clear to me on Monday, however, that this is not the case."
Centres struggling with how to provide the free 20 hours without sacking staff or cutting services would feel 'seriously misled" about the rules for the policy, she said in a speech to the conference.
The limited uptake of the free 20 hours was almost certain to get worse once centres realised the most common techniques for "balancing the 20 hours free books" had been ruled out, she said.
The survey found that 30 per cent of centres would not opt in to the policy while 46.1 per cent remained undecided.
In greater Auckland, 11.9 per cent of centres told the survey they would opt in to free early childhood education.
In greater Wellington the figure was 28.6 per cent, Christchurch 18.8 per cent, Tauranga 25 per cent and Hamilton 22.2 per cent.
Mrs Thorne said the survey was sent to 615 people responsible for running 1000 centres nationwide and was the most up-to-date hard data on the likely uptake of the policy.
Only half of those surveyed responded.
The council represents licensed early childhood education centres.
