Recent media attention to rethinking child care policy and funding is well overdue according to ACER's Research Director, Early Childhood Education, Dr Alison Elliott. This article was first published in the opinion section of The Canberra Times on 18 January 2006.

As early childhood experts and commentators have often said, much current child care and early childhood policy is based on outdated ideas of parents’ workforce participation, family and workplace mobility, and what constitutes a ‘working week’. It also largely ignores the long discredited distinction between ‘child care’ and ‘early childhood education’.

There is a myriad of legislation, regulation, providers, and funding bodies. In some places child care is a real dog’s breakfast. And like a dog’s breakfast, it is often stripped to the bone. Despite national quality assurance processes there is huge variation within and between states in child care provision and quality. Many children miss out altogether.

Since the current twin system of child ‘care’ and preschool ‘education’ developed about one hundred years ago much has changed. Family dynamics are very different. Most women and mothers work outside the home and their jobs are quite different from those of the mid and even late Twentieth Century.

Women are employed across all areas of the workforce; they can work all hours and seven days a week; they attend meetings and travel on business. But they want to balance work and family in ways that aren’t yet realistic, except for the well off. While telecommuting has altered the nature of the workplace for some women, most still commute to work- often from one end of the city to the other.

Along with the changing family and work patterns we know a lot more about children’s developmental and educational needs in early childhood. Research points to the impact of preschool experiences on adjustment to school and on longer term educational and social outcomes. A concern for schools is the alarming differences in young children’s language, cognitive and social development at school entry. Many children, especially from the most vulnerable families, have little opportunity for sustained participation in rich preschool learning environments. Unfortunately, the developmental gaps that are apparent by age five or six are difficult to close, even with well targeted school interventions.

Essentially, the Commonwealth funds child ‘care’ largely as a labour force measure and the states fund preschools to provide ‘education’. Closing this ‘care’ – ‘education’ gap is looming as a major challenge for the early childhood field and for the wider community, including schools. Developing a new approach to early childhood care and education is about providing for families’ work-related child care needs and optimising early learning and development. To date though, a national approach to seamless provision of early education and care is a long way off. There is little agreement on what is needed, which developmental and early learning models and approaches work best and in which contexts, and how to fund more integrated services. 

New conceptions of child care and early education must consider the complexity of changing family structures, roles and responsibilities, plus the reality of families’ home and work arrangements. Rethinking child care provision must acknowledge that a one-size-fits-all model will not work.

Meeting the child care and early education needs of working – and non-working- families in Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane is very different from meeting education and care needs of families in Katherine, Broken Hill or Taree. The idea of struggling to work-based child care on peak hour public transport with a stroller and toddler is more than even the fittest supermum- or dad- can manage. Work-place child care is certainly not the answer for all working parents. But nor is Family Day Care, or neighbourhood-located child care centres or preschool or kindergarten.

Clearly, the current early childhood system is not working well. Despite record spending and record numbers of child care places nationally, thousands of children miss out on child care and preschool places. Many more are under served or shunted between caregivers. When families do find a child care or preschool centre with a vacancy, it often costs as much as the most elite private school. Yet, child care workers are poorly paid and often poorly qualified.

The need for skilled early childhood practitioners is critical. Internationally, it is recognised that quality staff and quality development and learning outcomes go hand-in-hand. When early childhood educators have inadequate or incorrect knowledge, especially in early language and literacy, they cannot adequately support learning. And children suffer.

Only in Queensland must all child care practitioners have some, however minimal, qualification. Only in New South Wales must child care centres employ a qualified early childhood teacher- and then, only if they have more than 29 children.

The basic structure of early childhood care and education has changed little in the last hundred years. The legacy of the historical care-education divide still frames much current policy and practice. Developing an early childhood care and education system to take us well into the present century will be tough. But, the complexity of our family and work lives, expectations of continuing social change, and new knowledge about the importance of early brain development to later social and academic outcomes, means there must be a strong and focused commitment to a national early childhood vision and action plan. And we need to decide how we will fund this.  The current ‘care’- ‘education’ divide must be closed but quality early childhood provision is very expensive.

There is an urgent need to create more holistic early education and care services for children that are appropriate, accessible and affordable. Unless action is taken now, the twin system of care and education will continue. Affluent families will avoid child care altogether. Families eligible for the Child Care Benefit  will cluster in services where fees, and often quality, are kept low to maximise affordability.

Clearly, child care must be elevated on the public agenda to more than quiet news-day rhetoric. It’s something for a nation to address in a thoughtful and sustained way. Of course, families need and welcome more child care places, but child ‘care’ needs to be part of a broader early childhood package that nurtures children’s development and provides strong early education in the preschool years.

The ‘care’ aspect alone is insufficient to build the understandings and skills that provide sound foundations for early school success. Optimal social, intellectual and physical development in early childhood is dependent on both care and education. These are inseparable and must be dealt with in a bi partisan way. It's about investing in our children and their futures.

Dr Elliott is Research Director, Early Childhood Education with the Australian Council for Educational Research.

« Back to eNews