Category: News

Categories
News

New report card released on children’s wellbeing in Australia

Board member, lawyer and Yuin man, Tim Goodwin, spoke about the implications of this [ARACY] Report Card for our Indigenous people, noting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people are doing worse than average on 100% of the indicators. Mr Goodwin drew a moving connection between this Report Card and the narratives we Australians can pass on to the next generations, beseeching the audience, “Let’s write a new story, to read a new story to our children”.

Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth (25/3/2013)

The launch of this updated Report Card on the Wellbeing of Young Australians shows that we still have a lot of work to do on improving opportunities for our children, particularly our Indigenous children.

Labor MP Andrew Leigh also makes the sound point that programs and intervention need to be evidence-based, and not rooted in ideology.

Categories
News

ECEC centre offers “lovebird package” to families with night-time “babysitting”

The lovebirds special, which costs $95 and operates from 5pm to midnight at the NSW Academy of Early Learning in Casula, says an added bonus is that it is eligible for government rebates.

Owners Antony and Marc Elazzi said late-night care was much cheaper than hiring a babysitter.

“We believe that night care is the way of the future for the childcare industry,” Antony Elazzi said.

“We have created such a complicated world, where people have to work at night. The industry can provide a safe environment for children to stay which is regulated by the government, so that parents can work at night.”

Laura Speranza, Daily Telegraph (24/3/2013)

Well. It’s hard to know where to begin with this one.

This is where the for-profit chains, operators and advocates want to see the sector heading. This is “the future of the childcare industry”, according to Mr. Elazzi.

It’s a continuation of a trend that views ECEC as service for families, not as a right for children. The audacity of this proposal is shocking, and will of course be popular with some families. There will be no doubt some in the sector, perhaps even some of my own colleagues, who view this as a reasonable thing to do for some families.

But it needs to be completely clear that the view of ECEC as a learning and social right for children is completely incompatible with the view that “childcare” is a service for working families that can be twisted into any form that suits.

This is where the flexibility trials announced by Government will inevitably head, make no mistake. Any move to flexibility plays into the hands of profiteering private operators and fundamentally disadvantages children.

Advocates for children and for early learning and education in ECEC need to unite and take a stand on these kinds of issues. With 70% of the sector in the hands of private operators, this is an uphill battle – and we are losing.

Supporting working families and providing options for families is not the issue here. This needs to be worked through with a range of social and workforce policy measures – relying on ECEC to be all things to all families will be the end of any quality reforms we have started.

As for the educators of NSW Academy of Early Learning, any of them who have read this article must be thrilled to know their owners have such respect for them that they are being used as an option “cheaper than babysitting.”

What a lucky team.

Categories
News

ECEC wage funding only a small part of much-needed wage reform

The childcare sector is 98% composed of female staff. Increasing pay equity in this profession symbolises the ALP strategy to combat decreasing productivity growth by tackling the complexities of our labour market.

But it also speaks to the necessity of attracting women into the workforce more generally.

This is a problem conservatives do not appear to have analysed sufficiently. Tony Abbott leaves himself open to criticism that he is propping up antiquated traditions about the family (code for a male head-of- household) so he can cling to economically unsustainable views about the labour market (that women are supplementary to the “real” earners).

Chris Peers, The Conversation (22/3/2013)

The wages of early childhood educators are clearly a product of the gendering of the sector, as acknowledged by the Government’s commitment to support a pay equity case through Fair Work Australia.

Until the work of the social and community sector is properly valued, and that means wages, this debate will continue. The Government can be applauded for taking the first minor step, but Chris Peers is right in that it does not come close to addressing the complexities of the issue.

Categories
News

Win for Big Steps, but not quite the full victory

Providers would … have to agree to not increase their fees beyond operational costs, so as not to punish families.

“We know that quality early childhood education and care is dependent on having a qualified and professional workforce,” Mr Garrett said.

“We have listened to the sector and to parents and we are pleased to introduce this fund to help attract and retain qualified staff,” he said.

Simon Benson, Daily Telegraph (19/3/2013)

A qualified win for the Big Steps campaign.  $300 million for some of the sector is certainly less than the ask for professional wages for the whole sector.

But the important thing in this announcement is the Government’s acknowledgement that supporting educators is crucial to ensuring quality outcomes for children. This could be the starting point for much larger reforms.

Categories
News

Government announces new trials for extended ECEC hours

The Gillard government will today announce new national trials that will include family day care options in the home for parents who do not work standard 9-5 office hours as well as the extended childcare centre hours.

The national experiment will cost $5 million and seek to answer not only whether extended hours are viable for centres but also track whether they reduce the stress levels of families.

Samantha Maiden, Sunday Mail (16/3/2013)

In an election year, “trials” of this kind were an inevitability. It is no doubt a tricky issue – casualisation of the workforce and issues for shift-workers have always been around. While I am in principle supportive of measures to deal with those issues, I am wary of any measures to extend hours for early childhood education and care centres.

As I have written before, turning ECEC into a 24/7 convenience destroys any chance of the sector being viewed as fundamentally an education sector, and as right to children. Instead, it will remain a workforce participation measure and a right for families.

This is fundamentally inequitable for children, and raises substantial questions around how seriously Australia takes the wellbeing and educational rights of children.

Categories
News

Greens to push for new inquiry into ECEC

Ms Hanson-Young said the government could no longer ignore child care, which is shaping up to become a key election issue.

”The Labor government can’t continue to pretend that nothing needs to be done,” she said. ”The sector needs proper funding reform if it is to lift quality standards and meet the needs of families.”

A national survey of 230 child-care centres conducted by the Greens in January found that fees were increasing while availability was declining in a number of areas.

Rachel Browne, SMH (12/3/2013)

An inquiry into the funding of ECEC could potentially be very positive for the sector and for children. The current funding model is heavily weighted in favour of profiteering private operators and makes raising quality standards very difficult.

But history tells us that the inquiry would likely focus on waiting lists, fees and workforce participation rather than the best interests of children.

Categories
News

What does education mean in the age of Google?

[Children’s author James] Marsden said that while some schools are “absolute groundbreakers” in the way they foster innovation and open-mindedness, others are sticking to a 1950s didactic education model.

“Children graduate without the social, emotional and intellectual skills to be as successful as they might be,” he said. “They are in more danger of failing in a lot more areas of their lives.”

Cosima Marriner, SMH (10/3/2013)

The education system is arguably little different from the schools of the early 1900s. With information available at the click of a smartphone search bar, how are we preparing children to be confident, capable and active citizens in this information society? An particularly important question for early childhood educators.

Categories
News Uncategorized

Overcoming prejudice as a male educator in ECEC

Being the only man on this female dominated course and the butt of the teachers’ jokes was hard in the beginning. “I cried every evening for the first few weeks. I had a good friend there who helped get me through it but I spent a lot of time crying into my pillow at home,” [John Warren] admits.

This did happen many years ago and he says “things have improved since I started out but men still encounter prejudice” and men are still very much a minority in childcare as only two per cent of the early years workforce is male and this statistic has remained steady in the past decade, despite national and local recruitment campaigns aimed at men.

Sue Learner, daynurseries.co.uk (7/3/2013)

I am lucky to have had a mostly positive experience (with a few exceptions) as a male early childhood educator in Australia. But the numbers are still low in Australia, and I have heard a lot of my male colleagues still suffering similar prejudice and suspicion.

This will continue to be a major challenge for the sector until a coordinated and holistic approach to recruiting male educators is implemented.

Categories
News

Retail more financially rewarding than educating children

[Tanya Holmes], a traineeship diploma educator at South Penrith’s Bollygum Childcare Centre, will complete her diploma of children’s services this year.

Ms Holmes said she was forced to take a second job, in retail, to make ends meet.

And she was considering leaving the industry because it was too tough to provide for her family.

Alexis Carey, TheTelegraph.com.au (7/3/2013)

Great to see more of the individual stories of struggling educators out there, particularly on International Women’s Day.

Categories
News

Attention on the lack of men in ECEC, but what are the causes?

[Early childhood educator] Mr Wagland, 48, happily spends most of his days interacting with children outside, passing on his love of the environment, focussed “on ground level”.

“You don’t notice that your workplace is full of women because you are actually working with children all day,” he said.

Martina Simos, Adelaide Now (4/3/2013)

To be blunt, this article is an incredibly lightweight look at a complex issue. Childcare SA President Sam Mahony (who recently threatened to use ECEC children and families in a political campaign against Minister Kate Ellis) claims that men are wary of entering a female-dominated industry, which may be true, but he does not (in this article at least) raise the issues of professional wages, professional respect and potential suspicion of men who choose to work with young children.

Mr Wagland’s comments also unfortunately reinforce existing stereotypes on men who work with children. Happily spending his days outside with the children is great, but tends to reflect a preconception that male educators and teachers focus on physical development and games with children. This ignores the male educators and teachers who work with children in other areas across the range of holistic early childhood learning. This then creates further challenges for men who do not fit the existing stereotype to join the sector.

As for the comment “You don’t notice that your workplace is full of women”, this is sadly entirely missing the rather obvious point that ECEC workplaces are full of women. This is tied into cultural norms that place women in the role of caregiver, and then into low-paying and lowly-respected roles as essentially “babysitters”.

I would suggest to Mr Wagland that he perhaps takes a another look around his centre and advocate for community recognition of his work and the work of his colleagues he appears not to have noticed.