A new report reveals Auckland primary schools are receiving five-year-olds who lack basic skills including talking, eating, and toileting, the NZ Herald reports.

The findings point to a crisis in early childhood development that educators say is getting worse.

This is a shocking indictment of where New Zealand is heading. Teachers are essentially having to provide parenting services because kids aren't getting basic development at home. The 456 Reddit comments show this has touched a nerve.

According to a survey by the Auckland Primary Principals' Association covering 120 schools, nearly 90% report increases in new entrants lacking basic abilities:

- Language and literacy: Inability to talk properly, not recognizing letters of their own name - Self-care: Difficulty with toileting and dressing independently - Fine motor skills: Unable to hold a pencil - Social-emotional: Struggles with empathy and focus

The report notes some children enter primary school "with developmental levels equivalent to 3-year-olds, especially in self-management and oral language."

School leaders suspect a connection to early childhood education attendance, but the data isn't clear. Kelly Seaburg, director of New Shoots Children's Centre, noted the lack of concrete data linking school-readiness gaps directly to ECE non-attendance.

What's clear is the impact on schools. Massey Primary School's assistant principal said addressing these developmental gaps takes considerable time: "It takes at least three years to catch them up to expected curriculum standards."

That's three years of primary school spent teaching skills that should have been developed before age five. Three years when these kids are falling behind their peers who arrived ready to learn.

So what's behind this? Likely a combination of factors - poverty reducing access to quality ECE, screen time replacing human interaction, COVID impacts on early development, and parenting support systems that aren't working.

The report emphasizes the critical importance of quality ECE and calls for ensuring "the funding and support is in place so that collectively, we can set New Zealand's children up for long-term learning success."

But that requires political will and resources. The current government has focused on cutting costs in education and social services. This report suggests the costs of those cuts will be measured in a generation of kids who started school already behind.

Mate, there's a whole country of five-year-olds who should be learning to read, not learning to use the toilet. This is where New Zealand is at, and it should alarm everyone.