The Federal Government today formally announced the “terms of reference” and scope for next year’s Productivity Commission into “Child Care and Early Childhood Learning”.
The Government is delivering on its priority commitment to task the Productivity Commission with an inquiry into how the child care system can be made more flexible, affordable and accessible.
The Inquiry will identify how the current system can be improved to make it more responsive to the needs of parents.
We want to ensure that Australia has a system that provides a safe, nurturing environment for children, but which also meets the working needs of families.
Our child care system should be responsive to the needs of today’s families and today’s economy, not the five-day 9am-5pm working week of last century.
I’ll have a longer article up on this later this week, but this should be sounding alarm bells for all advocates for early childhood education.
The announcement makes clear that workforce participation and economic imperatives are the focus for this Government.
The sector will need to be putting up some strategic and sustained advocacy in the face of this.
Liam McNicholas 
One reply on “Terms of reference out for Productivity Commission inquiry”
ALOT OR ALARM BELLS ARE GOING OFF IN MY HEAD!!!!! Looking forward to your article later in the week Liam!