I am an experienced early childhood teacher, writer and advocate. As well as managing community not-for-profit early childhood operations in a variety of roles, I have advocated for children's human rights; the need for investment in early childhood education; and for professional recognition and wages for those working in early childhood education and care.
I am available to be commissioned for freelance writing, editing, event speaking and consulting work.
Today is the first day of the ACECQA 2013 Conference. For those of you on Twitter, I’d recommend following along using the hashtag #nqfcon2013.
If you’re an educator, teacher or otherwise involved in children’s education, I would strongly recommend signing up to Twitter and getting involved. It’s a great way to “meet” fellow professionals and contribute to the broad discussions around children’s learning and wellbeing.
If you do, don’t forget to say hello to me: @liammcnicholas.
On the second-to-last day of the 2013 Election campaign, the Coalition announced their early childhood education and care policy: The Coalition’s Policy for Better Child Care and Early Learning.
Rather surprisingly, given Sussan Ley’s statements in The Australian, the Coalition will seek to pause many of the most important reforms of the National Quality Framework for Early Childhood Education and Care.
With regards to staffing ratios:
The Coalition will work with State and Territory governments to review the implementation
of staff to child ratios to assess whether their implementation can be slowed to give the
sector enough time to absorb the changes and ensure continuity of service.
The Coalition are also targeting the new qualification requirements:
Given the concerns of the child care sector, the Coalition supports a review of child care
qualifications. We will seek the cooperation of the States and Territories to pause the
requirement that all staff should be qualified until the Australian Children’s Education
Quality and Care Authority has undertaken a full review of early childhood qualifications.
Given the shortage of ECTs, the Coalition believes that it makes sense to put on hold the
requirement for centres with more than 25 children to employ an ECT. We will delay this
requirement until a full review has been undertaken, and in the meantime look at possible
ways to encourage more people, particularly in rural and regional areas where shortages
are most noticeable, to study early childhood teaching.
The reforms to educator-to-child ratios and qualification requirements are rightly held up as key improvements to the sector. Research and practical experience from around the world has shown that these are crucial to quality outcomes for children.
It is important to remember that as the NQF is a product of the Council of Australian Governments (COAG), any changes to the Framework will require the support of the States and Territories (which is acknowledged in the policy document).
I will be honest – I am conflicted about this policy announcement. Anyone expecting instant disapproval and blind support for the Labor Government’s implementation of the NQF reforms had probably better stop reading now.
I am completely supportive of the reforms – I have argued publicly that they do not actually go far enough.
I also completely dismiss the talk of “administrative” problems and the burden of red tape that the Coalition speak of – strict, clear and enforceable regulations are absolutely essential to ensure children’s health and safety. To put it bluntly, any ECEC organisation that cannot handle the “regulatory burden” shouldn’t be in business.
But…
I am forced to conclude that as things currently stand, the Coalition is not wrong to suggest that aspects of the NQF are put on hold.
This is not to say that Tony Abbott’s approach to ECEC is correct. The Coalition have no plan to address the structural issues they have identified, and will palm everything off to a Productivity Commission enquiry.
But this was inevitable, and it is entirely the fault of the Labor Government – specifically Ministers Kate Ellis and Peter Garrett.
As I have written before, the ECEC sector as a whole was never going to be ready to implement even the beginning of the qualification requirements by 2014.
The Government has entirely failed to ensure that the NQF would be embedded and immune from this inevitable announcement by the Coalition.
The NQF should have been accompanied with significant funding and support to the sector, and a long-term campaign to gain public support for the benefits of early childhood education.
Instead, we got a “Early Childhood Workforce Strategy” – an insulting 22-page pamphlet (I refuse to call it a document) that would have been laughed out of any sector or industry that the Government actually took seriously.
Families received the odd brochure or postcard, buried under an avalanche of Government advertising detailing how much money they were spending on rebates.
A bizarre and divisive fund for professional wages was delivered at the last-minute, which has only served to deepen the divisions and frustrations of the sector.
The Government’s implementation approach to the NQF seemed to be tossing it to the sector, and then wandering off with a quick “let us know how you get on”. Even with two years to meet the initial qualification requirements in 2014, huge swathes of the sector were never going to get there.
The best analogy I can think of is like asking a straight-jacketed person to do the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy – it was never going to go well.
Structural and foundational work needed to be done before these reforms could really flourish – the low wages and professional standing of the educators in the sector; the incompatibility of ECEC with for-profit providers; lack of targeted funding to support children and families with vulnerabilities, and the educators who work with them – just to name a few.
The straight-jacket holding the sector wasn’t removed – the Government didn’t even seem to notice that there were issues.
From that point of view, it is simple to argue that the reforms should be put on hold.
The Government has gifted the Coalition a major goal on ECEC. Their failure to invest the necessary funding and support into the sector has allowed the Coalition to persuasively argue that the reforms are not really that great and are actually making things worse.
As an advocate for the human right of each child in Australia to a quality education, and the potential power of our sector to raise children out of inequality and vulnerability, I am furious with the Government.
The National Quality Framework should have been the turning point the sector so badly needs. Many people reading this will cast me as now advocating against the reforms – to be clear, this is completely not the case.
Do I want to see the reforms to be slowed, or wound back? Absolutely not.
But there is little point in pushing ahead with the 2014 requirements that are simply impossible for the sector to meet. What is the point in having the requirements if half the sector is on waivers?
The mismanagement of the NQF implementation may hamper our fight for recognition and structural reform for years. What a legacy.
An interesting article from Lucy Powell in The Guardian UK on the failure of the UK Government to invest in their childcare sector. It makes some good points, particularly the evidence that the huge investment required to truly have universal access for all children would be of long-term benefit to the country.
It’s time for government to stop tinkering and take childcare seriously. We see business case after business case for boys’ toys like planes and trains – high-speed rail and airport expansion. Government should develop the case for childcare as a key economic driver to get women – and it is still mainly women – back into work and earning their full potential to benefit not only families but also the country.
The case for free universal childcare should be seriously explored. The IPPR has shown that universal childcare – 25 hours of free childcare for children from one to four – would pay a return to the Exchequer of £20,050 over four years in terms of tax revenue minus the cost of childcare for every woman who returns to work full time after a year of maternity leave. Childcare investment would not only get our economy moving, it would also help the development of young children and begin to level the playing field between poorer children and their peers when they start school.
Powell does unfortunately couch the article primarily in terms of economic outcomes – the needs of children are only lightly touched on. I also question the reducing of traditional infrastructure investment as “boy’s toys” – quality infrastructure is also vital in lifting families out of vulnerable circumstances.
It serves no-one to reduce the argument to “Boys Vs. Girls”, or infrastructure vs. childcare. Investment is needed in both, and universal access to early education and care would significantly redress the gender imbalances in families that Powell rightly points out still exists.
Goodstart Early Learning has released the results of a survey conducted throughout June that sought opinions from Australian families on the early childhood education and care sector.
Goodstart chief executive Julia Davison said paid parental leave was not the main driver when it came to women’s participation in work. “Access to affordable quality childcare needed to be the second big leg of work and family policy alongside paid parental leave,” Ms Davison said.
“International research cited in a recent report by the Grattan Institute suggests that government support for childcare has about double the impact on female workforce participation as spending on paid parental leave. We would like to see the next government prioritising new investment into early learning and childcare so that parents do not end up wearing the additional cost of the quality reforms.”
Ms Davison said new investment should be an additional term of reference for the Coalition’s proposed Productivity Commission review of the sector. “Our government’s education spending priorities of inadequate investment in children’s early years do not reflect the priorities of Australian families and run counter to international best practice and research,” she said.
Early childhood educators in NSW have rallied outside State Parliament to protest the NSW Government’s planned changes to funding early childhood education.
Leanne Gibbs helped organise a rally of childcare workers held outside State Parliament this morning.
“What essentially we’re asking for is a proper model of funding that ensures that children have access and that means three-year-olds as well,” Ms Gibbs said.
“We’re looking for a visionary approach to policy in this state and to funding early childhood education, so we want to see more money going into the childhood sector.
“We’re looking at a sector that could become unviable.”
Source: ABC News Online
You can check out more information on the proposed policy at http://www.earlyeducation.org.au.
Interesting piece from Yvonne Haigh up at The Conversation that explores the tension between a “caring” society and the political desire to be seen as “strong” on the economy. She touches on ECEC policies:
The Labor government introduced the National Quality Framework (2012) to ensure quality of educative and care services and it tinkered with rebates and family benefits to the tune of A$7,500 rebate for many families per child. But this does not cover the total costs for children attending day-long or out-of-school child care.
The Coalition has proposed a Productivity Commission inquiry into child care: one that takes into account costs, rebates and subsidies but does not target funding for child care centres.
As proposed solutions, these positions reinforce the tension between policies that “care” and enhancing the economic bottom line. The Coalition’s paid parental leave policy has been criticised for reinforcing inequality and discrimination against women; the Labor Party’s approach has been criticised for excluding superannuation. In both positions, the importance of care is lost in the rhetoric that focuses on time periods and amounts of financial assistance.
The article is worth a read, and also touches on disability, aged care and family policy.
Long-time champion for early childhood education and care has written in Women’s Agenda today with her practical approaches to “fixing” the childcare crisis. Well-worth a read.
The Government needs to completely re-jig the funding system so it set up conditions and costs, as happens with nursing homes. They need to control and fund services that are in appropriate locations, places for different age groups and locally appropriate flexible hours of operating. This should also include some levels of fee control, to allow break even or profit levels but not excessive returns. The market model has shown it cannot meet diverse consumer needs under the current system so this industry should be deemed a market failure in need of more government intervention.
My only point of disagreement with Eva would be that her plan doesn’t go far enough. The Early Years needs to be fully integrated in to the education system, entirely free-to-access and entirely funded by Government.
Sussan Ley, the Coalition’s spokesperson for childcare and early learning, has signalled that if elected her party will ensure the implementation of the National Quality Framework.
The Coalition has promised if it wins the election to convene a meeting with state and territory ministers to fine-tune the NQF to remove excessive regulation, but will maintain the quality aspects of the reforms to a sector dominated by low-paid female workers.
“Rollback of the reforms is not a term I have ever used and, by law, any slowdown would be a decision for the state and territory governments, individually or collectively,” opposition childcare spokeswoman Sussan Ley told The Australian.
…
“If we’re elected, we will sit down with state and territory ministers to work out what aspects of the NQF could work better than they are at present,” she said.
“In particular, we will focus on where excessive regulation adds to compliance and cost but not to quality.”
Source: The Australian
This is a fairly significant backdown after years of dramatic recitations of “the dead hand of government red tape”. The Coalition will also apparently accept the verdict of Fair Work Australia on any wage increases for educators. Taking Ms Ley at face value, this is good news for the sector.
It is important to remember, however, that the Coalition has been feeling political pressure on childcare and early learning, and the Australian has been very accommodating to their views on government regulation.
Also importantly, in the article Ms Ley claims that she has never stated that the Coalition would “roll back” reforms. This is disingenuous at best, and an outright falsehood at worst.
A good comparison on Ms Ley’s apparent change of heart can be found be reading this article “Coalition plans for childcare rollback” from 2012.
Ms Ley told The Australian the regulation was killing the sector and must be abandoned.
“Family daycare is becoming incredibly inflexible under the National Quality reforms,” she said. “I’m really feeling the frustration of the sector because every childcare roundtable I attend brings forward more examples of the dead hand of government regulation in a sector that absolutely doesn’t need it.
The Australian Greens are today releasing their plan to combine the Child Care Benefit (CCB) and Child Care Rebate (CCR) payments and increase the amount paid to some families. The plan is costed at $2.3 billion over 4 years.
Some families, however, would get little new assistance, while others stand to gain more because the system would be skewed to help those who need it most.
Greens childcare spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young said there was a clear need to streamline funding mechanisms to provide assistance to more parents who need it and promote higher standards of care.
”The crisis in childcare means fees are skyrocketing and availability is dropping, especially in high-need areas,” she said.
”If Australian children are going to be cared for in centres with sufficient numbers of qualified staff, the government must commit to increasing support to the sector.
”Without increased funding to childcare, families won’t be able to have the high-quality, affordable, flexible care that they need.”
Source: The Age
Streamlining the assistance payments makes sense, but it’s disappointing to see yet another policy announcement from a major party that fails to address the structural problems facing the sector.
For a great look at how the sector needs structural reform, check out this great story from ABC Radio National.
UPDATE: Green’s policy detail now up here.
A slight detour for this blog, but something struck me over the weekend as I watched and read some of the horrific reports coming out of Syria.
“Another grim milestone has been reached in the two-and-half-year conflict that has gripped Syria, with the United Nations announcing 1 million children have now fled over the border to escape the relentless violence.
The UN agencies for refugees and children, UNHCR and UNICEF, also estimate another 2 million children are internally displaced within Syria and at least 7,000 have been killed.”
Source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-08-23/1-million-children-flee-syria-bloody-conflict/4906314
The UN has also estimated that 6000 children have died in the conflict.
Over the last few days, the international community has responded to reports that the Syrian Government has used chemical warfare on its own citizens.
Many in international governments and the media have described this as a “red line” which, if proved to have been crossed, could be the impetus for military force to be used by the United States and other powers.
I have only an amateur’s interest in geopolitics and the policy decisions of military engagements – but a question struck me as these reports were coming.
What if children were “the red line”?
What if, as an international community, the “line” is crossed when children are massacred, or displaced, or tortured?
What would this mean for international relations? This is a rhetorical question, I don’t have the answers – I would love to hear what people think. Please comment below!
I will just add this. Air strikes and military engagements (including drone strikes) in Iraq and Afghanistan, by our partners and allies and in our name as Australians, have been responsible for potentially thousands of child deaths.
Nelson Mandela once said: “There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children”.
Liam McNicholas 