Because our children deserve better...
This week is Early Years Professional Appreciation Week in Tasmania. It also a week in which the Senate Inquiry into childcare (set up after the collapse of the ABC chain of childcare centres) came to town and also COAG consultations were held on the regulatory impact statement on the options for early childhood education and care quality reforms. It was also the week where a for-profit service claimed that a state tax was to blame for the closure of a number of out of school hours services. A week of high and lows.
The importance of the early years is now beyond debate, the research is in, 80% of a child’s development occurs before the age of 5 and studies has proven that giving a child access to quality early years programs not only assists them with socialisation but also instills in children a love for lifelong learning. It also allows families to balance their work and family commitments and enables women to return to workforce and have a genuine choice in maintaining a career.
The current funding to the early years sector is woefully inadequate. Australia currently expends a comparatively woeful 0.4 % of GDP on ECEC services (childcare and preschool combined). This compares with the OECD average of 0.7% with a number of European countries exceeding 1.00%.
The current funding system, designed under the Howard years, creates a market based solution for the care of children. Funds are made available through a complex system of rebates and childcare benefits to parents and then indirectly to services combined with a mish-mash of one off or program or time based grants. Corporate providers have aggressively targeted the sector and the provision is care is now based purely on economics, and not need.
It is no exaggeration that the early years sector is in crisis.
I put the argument at both the Senate Enquiry and the COAG consultation that the current debate and direction of the Federal Government review of the sector is very positive but unless they create a national system of regulation and licensing driving quality and based on the highest of standards (including significantly reduced staff child ratios) combined with a comprehensive workforce strategy dealing not only with qualifications but also more crucially with wages and conditions.
Without addressing the issue of chronic low wages the sector will face either crippling staff turnover or an increase in the practice of deeming for the purpose of satisfying ratios (deeming is a process where people are deemed qualified but are without a formal qualification, this usually occurs when people have either worked in the sector for many years or are part way through their studies). This will undermine quality.
The demand driven, market based system of allocating places to the community is fatally flawed as areas of need but not necessarily financial capacity will continue to receive patchy and substandard services where more affluent areas will be well and sometimes over catered for. A national planning system that assesses need, demand while respecting choice and that provides some transparent regulation for communities is desperately needed.
It is also crucially important that the financial operations of those either running services or owning/operating the facilities that house the service must be made transparent. It is not only important to know that a service can maintain a high quality operation but also that operation is financially sustainable. Parents have a right to know that the centre where they drop off their children every morning will still be operating next week, next month and next year.
Without a comprehensive package combined with a reform of the funding model where funds are directly targeted to the services and linked to quality outcomes our children and their families will continue to be let down. Our children deserve better.
And remember if you use childcare or know an early years professional…say well done and thanks….
The importance of the early years is now beyond debate, the research is in, 80% of a child’s development occurs before the age of 5 and studies has proven that giving a child access to quality early years programs not only assists them with socialisation but also instills in children a love for lifelong learning. It also allows families to balance their work and family commitments and enables women to return to workforce and have a genuine choice in maintaining a career.
The current funding to the early years sector is woefully inadequate. Australia currently expends a comparatively woeful 0.4 % of GDP on ECEC services (childcare and preschool combined). This compares with the OECD average of 0.7% with a number of European countries exceeding 1.00%.
The current funding system, designed under the Howard years, creates a market based solution for the care of children. Funds are made available through a complex system of rebates and childcare benefits to parents and then indirectly to services combined with a mish-mash of one off or program or time based grants. Corporate providers have aggressively targeted the sector and the provision is care is now based purely on economics, and not need.
It is no exaggeration that the early years sector is in crisis.
I put the argument at both the Senate Enquiry and the COAG consultation that the current debate and direction of the Federal Government review of the sector is very positive but unless they create a national system of regulation and licensing driving quality and based on the highest of standards (including significantly reduced staff child ratios) combined with a comprehensive workforce strategy dealing not only with qualifications but also more crucially with wages and conditions.
Without addressing the issue of chronic low wages the sector will face either crippling staff turnover or an increase in the practice of deeming for the purpose of satisfying ratios (deeming is a process where people are deemed qualified but are without a formal qualification, this usually occurs when people have either worked in the sector for many years or are part way through their studies). This will undermine quality.
The demand driven, market based system of allocating places to the community is fatally flawed as areas of need but not necessarily financial capacity will continue to receive patchy and substandard services where more affluent areas will be well and sometimes over catered for. A national planning system that assesses need, demand while respecting choice and that provides some transparent regulation for communities is desperately needed.
It is also crucially important that the financial operations of those either running services or owning/operating the facilities that house the service must be made transparent. It is not only important to know that a service can maintain a high quality operation but also that operation is financially sustainable. Parents have a right to know that the centre where they drop off their children every morning will still be operating next week, next month and next year.
Without a comprehensive package combined with a reform of the funding model where funds are directly targeted to the services and linked to quality outcomes our children and their families will continue to be let down. Our children deserve better.
And remember if you use childcare or know an early years professional…say well done and thanks….
posted by David at
9:20 PM
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